Living Anonymously
by VigoGrimborne
Summary: Book 2 of the 'Living' series. Time has passed, but the events set in motion years ago are still moving, and several unfortunate coincidences throw Toothless and company back into the world, this time under the fog of impending war.
1. Chapter 1

There was a saying. When things look bad, imagine how they could get worse, and prepare for those eventualities. That way one can only be pleasantly surprised or prepared. There was just one problem with that cheery outlook on life.

Heather couldn't imagine how her life could get any worse. She had finally slipped up and was captured by some of the many Berserkers looking for her. Why they wanted her so badly, she had no idea. After they had razed her island, slaughtering all of its inhabitants, she had fled. She didn't know why they had attacked. No one did, but now she had a horrible suspicion. Somehow, they knew she was there. She still didn't know why, and that frustrated her to no end.

She was currently a prisoner in the ship of those Berserkers, presumably on a course to Berserker island from the isolated island village they had apprehended her at. By now though she knew better than to ask any of her captors. They responded to anything she said the same way. A punch in the face. She wasn't sure, but it was possible, that might have been official Berserker protocol because they all did the same thing. She would have guessed the three men she had been stupid enough to try talking to would at least have responded in different ways, but they all did the same thing. So now she was pretty sure she had some fairly large bruises on her face and nothing to show for it.

Her captors' silence lasted about five days into the journey. Then they lowered their guard a little bit, and she would sometimes hear them talking if they stood directly above her cell on the deck of the ship. of course, they never said anything useful, although the stupid rumors they shared were entertaining. They once spoke of a ghost talking to treasure hunters, of all things. Another time, she heard two guards debating whether or not the mysterious figure that rode a Night Fury was skinny or fat. Apparently, they had each heard stories that argued either way. To Heather, that indicated that this 'Rider' didn't exist, despite the stories. She was pretty sure the story that began all of those rumors had come from Berk. She tried not to remember the circumstances behind her discovering that source of information. It reminded her of why she had been on Berk, which led her thoughts back to her parents…

Lingering on the past wouldn't help her escape, which she was determined to do if only to spite her captors. They clearly needed her alive, so failing in an escape attempt probably wouldn't be deadly. So, on the sixth day, when she felt the ship cast anchor at what she thought might be around noon, indicating that they were stopping at some piece of land, she considered how to escape.

A chain connected her leg to one of the bars that made up the front of the small, closet-sized cell all Berserker vessels apparently had. She had to sleep these last nights sitting up, so she was sleep deprived and sore. That didn't matter. The other walls of the cell were solid wood, and the door was locked, as was the chain attached to it. Her only advantage was that she was pretty sure the same key fit both locks and that these particular Berserkers were fairly stupid. Strong, but stupid.

About ten minutes later, one of the guards unlocked the door and set a small plate of food down. It was barely enough to keep her from starving, as usual. They might need her alive, but only just. She moved toward it and the guard, who assumed she was going for the food. He was wrong.

Lightning quick, she jabbed with her hand flat, fingers first, straight at the bulky guard's throat. Anger and desperation made up for her starved and sleepless state and the crack of something in his throat breaking was not loud, but it was noticeable. The guard slumped to the floor and clutched at his neck, a strangely wet gasp sounding oddly loud in the quiet ship. That had not been a good sound. She thought she might have broken a finger or two, she hit so hard, but clearly, more damage had been done to the Berserker than her hand.

As she bent down to grab the key, she tried to ignore his pained gasping for air, which quickly faded into stillness. That attack hadn't been intended to kill him, but she was pretty sure that it had. She wasn't a hardened killer, not quite, but it was hard to feel remorse for one of the men responsible for the deaths of everyone she loved.

With the death of a guard, her certainty that she wouldn't be killed if recaptured was fading away. How valuable a prisoner was she? She didn't intend to stick around to find out.

She quickly unlocked her manacle. The door was still open, and she stepped over the fallen body of the guard, wincing as she used muscles that hadn't been able to really move in almost a week. Her head spun, but she didn't fall. She looked around the interior of the ship, but she didn't see any other Berserkers... or her ax. It was nothing special, but it had been hers.

At that moment, she realized that the ship seemed too quiet. There were, by her best guess nine of the Berserkers total, now eight. Where were the others? Hopefully, they had stopped at some busy port so she could easily slip away. They had probably left only the one guard here in the meantime.

She carefully ascended the ladder that led to the deck of the small ship. After going just high enough to see, she confirmed with a subtle glance around that she seemed to be alone on board. Then she saw the mountain.

It was unusual, in that the normal mountain peak one would expect was instead a flat surface, giving the mountain a cut-off look. As she ascended to stand fully on deck, she realized something. They had stopped at an island, but it was no port. Most of the island spread before her was covered in thick and tangled forest, with that single mountain rising from the back and center. There were no docks, no people, no villages. Not even any signs of boar or dragons. Not that she wanted to see either of those.

Of course, that also meant that there was no sign of the other Berserkers that had been on the boat. She decided to take the chance. She probably wouldn't starve to death here, and she could hide in that underbrush. Even if it meant living here until another boat came by, it would be better than wherever these Berserkers were taking her.

She leaped off the side of the boat and swam to the beach. She almost didn't make it, so weak from lack of food and space for six days that the waves almost defeated her. But she forced herself to stand as she reached the beach. The forest would be safety, a hiding place, and she couldn't falter yet. Safety, if she could just get there.

That hope swiftly faded when a Berserker stepped out of the woods about twenty feet away. He stared at her in shock. He was armed, but he was also carrying a barrel.

Fresh water, she guessed in despair. They were all probably just taking the opportunity to restock from a nearby stream. She knew she was too tired to outrun even one of them, but tried anyway and made it about halfway to the forest before he grabbed her. It was only a dull disappointment when other Berserkers stepped out of the forest, also carrying barrels of water. The Berserker holding her shook her in anger.

"What do you think you're doing?" He threw his mace at another Berserker who blocked it with his club. Apparently, the rest of them were used to this kind of thing. "How did she get out?!" That was directed at the rest of the Berserkers.

Heather watched as one of them waded back to the ship and climbed aboard. Her heart was pounding as they all waited. Then a shout of disgust rang out.

The Berserker reappeared at the edge of the ship. "She killed Hoern! He's dead in the cell!"

That was when Heather knew she was done. There was no way they'd even slightly underestimate her again if she even got another chance. If they didn't just kill her here and now. She really just wished she knew why. Why did they do any of this in the first place?

The massive Berserker holding Heather shook her again, glaring at her. "You are _very_ lucky Dagur wants you alive. Otherwise, I'd slit your throat right now."

Another Berserker moved closer. "Dagur just wants her alive though. We can make her regret killing Hoern without _killing_ her..." His face was menacing.

"Good idea. I'm open to suggestions." That was the Berserker holding Heather.

Heather tried to keep a straight face as the Berserkers called out worse and worse punishments. She failed miserably. Some of the things she was hearing were entirely capable of accidentally killing her. She blanched at the next words out of her captor's mouth.

"Good suggestions, all of those. I can't decide..." He leered evilly at Heather. "It is a long voyage back to Berserker island. We can just run through that list until we get there. I'm sure Dagur won't mind."

"Or, you could explain what in Thor's name you are doing on my island."

Heather whipped her head around in shock at the voice. It hadn't come from any of the Berserkers, but the forest. She would have guessed that no one lived on this island. It was almost enough to take her mind off of her current predicament.

The Berserker holding onto her tightened his grip as he responded. "Oy, show yourself! I don't talk to someone when I can't see their face." He subtly gestured behind his back at the other Berserkers, who dropped their barrels and put hands on their weapons.

The response came quickly. "And I don't show myself to armed Berserkers. Say, is Dagur still as insane as I remember?" That last part was taunting. "Or has he hit his head hard enough to fix that? You never know, it might work."

Insulting a chief was a good way to die, especially with armed Berserkers on the other end of the insult. Heather was not at all surprised to see the leader of the Berserkers send six of his men into the woods after the voice. She was pretty sure that was what the speaker had wanted, so it was no surprise when none of them came back.

The only two Berserkers left were the leader and the crossbowman. The leader tightened his grip on Heather's arm. He seemed nervous now. There hadn't even been sounds of a struggle.

The crossbowman pointed his weapon at the trees aimlessly. "Now what?"

Something hit him, dropping him instantly. Heather saw a small, spherical rock about the size of her closed fist land in the sand next to the downed crossbowman, whose forehead was beginning to display a growing bruise.

_And then there was one_, she thought with grim amusement. At least someone could take these idiots down.

The voice came from the trees again. "Let her go, and I'll only knock you out." There was menace there. "You said Dagur wanted her?"

The Berserker scowled. "Yes, which is why I ain't doing that!" He started backing through the sand, towards the shallows and the boat behind him, pulling Heather along.

"Tell Dagur I'll be in touch." The voice sounded crafty now. "And if you want to survive telling him that, I'd suggest you never mention you were the ones who caught her and then lost her. Just tell him you found someone who already had her prisoner and arranged for him to hand her over. Like I said, I'll contact him myself."

The Berserker protested warily. "But that didn't happen! We captured her, fair and square!"

The voice laughed. "I'm not giving you a choice. Enjoy your involuntary rest." Another stone flew out from the trees, knocking the last Berserker out cold.

Heather stood alone on the beach, entirely uncertain as to what she should do now. The stranger had saved her, but he had also told the Berserkers he'd be handing her over to Dagur himself. She wavered, exhausted, near-starving, and dehydrated, before clenching her fists, determined to...

No. She couldn't fight, not like this. It was not giving up so much as admitting the truth. She was spent.

She sat down in the sand and spoke aimlessly. "Well? What now?" This was pointless. Whoever the voice was, she probably couldn't even escape an angry yak at this point.

The voice didn't reveal himself. "That depends. Why do they want you so badly?"

Heather almost screamed in frustration. "I wish I knew! I've never even met Dagur, but apparently, he's willing to kill my entire island to get to me! His men have been chasing me for more than a year." She sighed, entirely done with this whole debacle. "Does it really matter? He's already killed everyone I care about. My parents, my tribe, everyone I knew." She really didn't know why. That made her mad, but it also depressed her. Her parents had died for nothing. At least, nothing she knew of.

The voice was soft. "Yes, it matters, because I needed to know if Dagur actually had a good reason for holding you, prisoner. That definitely doesn't count." There was a pause. "You really have no one left?"

Heather didn't answer. She had already said that. She idly scanned the forest edge, searching for the speaker, but knowing he probably wasn't visible. Finally, she responded. "No. No home, no friends, no family. Does that cover it, or do you want more details on exactly what I don't have?" She was shouting now. "I have nothing!"

"That makes things difficult." The statement was almost resigned. A man stepped out from the depths of the forest.

Heather stared. He couldn't have been over twenty, and he was wearing a strange, foreign armor. It seemed to be made out of small overlapping plates and was fairly form-fitting. No bulky pauldrons or suit, just black leather and black... scale. That was what it was, black scales molded into the shape of various pieces of armor. He carried a matching helmet, and a strange staff with metal... ends on his back. There really wasn't any recognizable shape to them, and they certainly weren't built for combat like that, although there was a blade involved. It looked almost incomplete. The wood of the staff was dark blue, the metal smoky purple. It was like nothing she had ever seen.

This didn't look like a hermit or a castaway. He seemed entirely comfortable being here. He walked confidently and quickly towards her. He held out his hand, which had a scale gauntlet over the back of it.

She stared at it, then realized he was offering to help her up. She took his hand and stood. "Do I look that weak?" It was a serious question.

He frowned. "Yes. I assume treatment as a Berserker prisoner wasn't great." He let go once she had stood, and turned to examine the boat.

Heather frowned. "What did you do to the other Berserkers?"

He laughed. "I didn't kill them if that's what you're asking. They are enjoying the same mandatory resting period as all uninvited guests who won't leave peacefully." He turned to look her in the eyes. "No one leaves here with both the knowledge that there is something on this island besides a convenient stream and the knowledge on how to get here." He gestured towards the boat. "Which is why these particular Berserkers are going to wake up on their boat, about a hundred miles..." He trailed off. "Where were they sailing from?"

Heather pointed West. "An island a few days East of here."

The man nodded. "They'll wake up a hundred miles East of here. With no maps whatsoever. They'll be forced to keep sailing West to hopefully find their destination..."

Heather grinned. "And wind up right back where they started, with no idea what happened."

The man nodded. "That's the idea." He frowned thoughtfully. "But they could find their way back here. Hopefully, they think there's no point. They'll report to Dagur eventually. That's when this gets difficult."

Heather shied away from him slightly. "Difficult how?"

"I won't turn over an innocent to a bloodthirsty lunatic, but Dagur seems to be looking for you, and his men know about this island now. So, I can't ignore him entirely. I need to meet him somewhere, and... dissuade him from pursuing you."

That strained belief. "Why would you bother?"

He shrugged, his eyes betraying the affected nonchalance. "I can't do something nice?"

"Something nice would be getting me off this island. Getting Dagur off of my back is too much for this just to be charity." She glared at him. "You can't trick me."

"Pretty sure I _could_," he argued, "but… I do have other reasons to want him to stop looking. You were last seen here, and caught around here. I'd rather Dagur and his men never come back here, which won't happen if he keeps searching for you."

Heather looked at him curiously. "You say that like there is something here he shouldn't know about."

He met her eyes. "Yes, there is. Me. That's all you can know. If you want to leave, that is." He seemed entirely serious.

Heather wasn't sure if she did want to leave. The Berserkers would be looking for her, and she didn't really have anywhere to go anyway. "What if I don't want to?"

He laughed. "Sorry, but you living here isn't an option." He suddenly seemed to reconsider that. "Well... probably not." He shook his head. "You wouldn't want to if you knew everything, and if you knew everything, I couldn't let you leave."

Heather pointedly surveyed the dense forest and apparently lifeless island. "Try me." She was curious now, and she really had nothing better going on.

The man snorted. "No. Not right now, at least. You seem dead-tired, probably hungry, and definitely dehydrated by the look of your face. There's a stream over there, and I can bring back food." He made a point of narrowing his eyes and staring at her warningly. "Do not leave this beach."

Heather surveyed the relatively small patch of sand. "For how long?"

The man turned to leave, heading back into the forest. "I'll bring food." He disappeared quite quickly, black armor blending into the deep shadows of the forest.

Heather considered what he had said. He was hiding something, and if she saw whatever it was, she couldn't leave… but she was pretty sure she didn't want to leave. This place was the perfect hideout, complete with a competent guardian who kept it hidden for his own reasons, and who didn't seem opposed to her being here, just sure she wouldn't be able to handle whatever he was hiding, and unwilling to risk it.

She quickly made her way over to the stream and drank fresh water until she couldn't anymore, content to wait a little while. Then she had a thought. What about the Berserkers he had knocked out? Surely they would wake up eventually. The man somehow planned on getting them back on board their ship and a hundred miles from here before then? He would have to make sure they all stayed unconscious for several days to do that, and she was pretty sure he didn't intend to just keep knocking them out the whole way there. Now that she thought about it, how did he plan on getting away from the ship of hostile Berserkers once he had piloted it where he wanted, even assuming he could somehow get all that way without them waking up? She abruptly wondered if he was simply crazy.

* * *

"Am I crazy?" Maour asked the empty air as he ran back to the caves, leaving Heather alone on the beach.

Well, she thought she was alone... and Maour also only looked like he was talking to no one. Things were not as they appeared.

'Possibly,' a voice snorted sarcastically. 'I'm wondering the same thing.' It was near and yet unplaceable if Maour had tried to figure out where the sound was coming from.

"Toothless, what would you have done?" Maour ducked a low-hanging branch, moving fluidly through the trees. "She was going to be tortured."

'I know, but showing yourself was crazy,' Toothless retorted. 'You could have just knocked her out too and left her somewhere on another island.'

Maour stumbled, tripping over a shrub. Toothless was right. "Then why didn't you _tell_ me about that option before I struck?!"

'Because I just thought of it,' Toothless admitted. 'And now it's too late. Also, she wants to stay here.'

"I know, I was there," Maour quipped, regaining his stride. "Do you think..?"

'Don't get ahead of yourself... but maybe.' A mental snort. 'It's been long enough. You need a mate.'

Maour stopped running due to self-preservation. He had no desire to run into a tree, too distracted to concentrate. "Not what I meant, and you know it."

'Yes, but teasing you is fun. Still, focus on keeping her alive and oblivious for now. Sound her out a bit while you're at it.'

"On that note, is she staying where I said?" He accessed Toothless's vision, pulling on another aspect of the link between them. His vision sharpened, and widened, changing to show his adoptive brother's viewpoint.

No, she had not moved. She was sitting in the shade by the stream. Accessing Toothless's hearing yielded nothing of interest. She was entirely unaware of the darker black lurking in the deep shadows of the forest, still and silent.

Silent to her ears, anyway. It took a link to hear any dragon speak. As only Night Furies seemed able to create them, and she was not a friend of dragons, she definitely wouldn't hear Toothless speaking.

He let go of Toothless's senses and resumed his trip to their cave. The pack needed to be informed, and some very quick decisions made.

* * *

Heather wasn't really sure how long she waited by that stream, but it didn't feel like very long before the man was back with a cooked fish and a wide piece of cloth. He handed Heather the fish and kept the cloth. Heather ate quickly but eyed him warily as she did. "What's the cloth for?"

The man frowned. "It's a blindfold. I'll need you to put it on, and follow me after you finish eating." He seemed annoyed by this but resigned to the necessity of it.

Heather laughed. "You really are paranoid. This must be one doozy of a secret you're keeping." She was becoming more and more sure she wanted to know what he was hiding. This blindfold presented her with an opportunity. She could always take it off before he could stop her.

The man wasn't amused. "It is. And it is going to stay a secret."

Heather thought back to something the man had said. "What makes you think you can't trust me?" She didn't think she looked untrustworthy, and she did owe him, so he could just demand she swear to secrecy, whatever it was.

The man grimaced. "Most Vikings can't be trusted with this. They would only see the parts they wanted to see and ignore the rest. I can't afford to take any risks, but I already am by having intervened at all. I should really have just let them leave with you. But I wouldn't. So, the blindfold."

"Now?" Heather had by now finished eating and felt much less in danger of fainting from exhaustion. She held out her hand for the blindfold, but when started to hand it to her she abruptly pulled her hand back. "Where are we going?"

"Off this beach, for a start. There's no shade here." He waited patiently for her to take the blindfold. She didn't, and he sighed. "Nowhere bad. I just need to get you out of sight of the beach, and ideally, somewhere you can stay a few days, while I figure out how to get you to the nearest island."

Heather blinked. "Don't you have a boat?"

"No, I do not." He didn't seem at all unhappy about that. "I probably should for situations like this, but boats are really hard to hide."

Heather didn't like what that implied. "Are you stuck here?"

He seemed to consider that. "Well, if I wanted to leave I could hitch a ride on a passing ship. They're rare, but they do come along every once in a great while." There was definitely more he wasn't saying. That was far too dangerous a situation for anyone to be so calm about.

Heather was beginning to feel nervous. She didn't like where all of this was going. A lone stranger, garbed and armed foreignly, alone on an island with no boat and no interest in leaving. But he couldn't be surviving here indefinitely because there was definitely no room for large farms or wild game here. No one stopped here except for water because it was clearly uninhabitable. She now had one suspicion, but she shoved it aside. She was not superstitious. Still... "What's your name, anyway?"

He smiled. " Maour. And you would be?"

Heather relaxed minutely. There was one name she had been dreading. That one piece of truth that was like a shard of ice, cutting into what she knew of the world. The one she had learned on Berk a few years ago. She didn't want to think about that. It brought back memories of her parents. "Heather."

_**Author's Note: **_**Well, here we are. A few points of interest:**

**At the moment, the plan is to keep this story updating every Thursday morning, as _Living Vicariously _did.**

**This story, with around 25 chapters, is not as long as _Living Vicariously _ended up being, somewhere around 130,000 words total. On the other hand, it's not the last story in the series either, not by a long shot, so at least we'll get to the next one sooner, right?**

** A shout-out to my beta, Fizzlemcschnizzle, who helps ensure this isn't crap from both a plot and grammatical standpoint. And, given this was written a good half a year ago now, it needs it.**


	2. Chapter 2

The wind blew through the trees on the shoreline by the beach, setting the leaves into a constant back and forth shimmer of green. It was a pleasant backdrop to the sight of multiple unconscious Berserker soldiers, which to Heather was even more of a pleasant sight… as long as they remained unconscious.

"Well, Heather, we need to go now. I do have something of a deadline consisting of eight concussed Berserkers waking up in a few hours." Maour was still holding out the blindfold.

Heather took it and put it on without complaint. She had no desire to make him doubt her intentions. Even if she was planning on waiting for a good chance to take it off and find out what he was hiding. She felt him take her hand and let him lead her into the forest. It was very dense, but he helped by telling her to to step over an exposed root here or duck under a branch there, giving fairly detailed instructions. He was very good at that.

They walked for what felt like hours, though Heather knew it probably hadn't been that long. She heard nothing out of the ordinary on the entire walk. After a while, she felt confident enough to try and talk, and decided to probe some of what she had noticed. "So, how many of you are there on this island?"

"Me, myself, and I." He sounded amused.

"No, I'm pretty sure there were at least two people throwing rocks. They came from different directions." She had realized this while reviewing the entire encounter in her head.

"I can move quickly."

"Right…" What should she ask next? "Why are you here?"  
Silence for a moment. Then she tripped on a branch and almost fell face-first, only barely catching her balance. "Hey! Warn me next time!"

"You were distracting me," he countered, sounding a little annoyed. "I can't answer questions and keep you on your feet at the same time."  
"You also can't keep me on my feet if I fall and hurt myself," Heather retorted.

"There was a pile of pine needles there. You would have been fine. No more questions."

That shut Heather up, but only for a moment. She didn't have much patience for this to begin with, and she was really tired of the blindfold. So, she stopped walking and pulled her hand away.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm done with this." She put a hand up to the blindfold, only to have it pushed away. "I can keep a secret, and I sure don't have anyone to tell, so quit it with the lies and secrecy!"

Another attempt to remove the blindfold, foiled once again by Maour stopping her.

"I don't know exactly what will happen if you do that, but you probably won't like it." A dark tone.

That made her stop actively trying to take the blindfold off, but it was not enough to make her stop talking. "I don't have anywhere to go, and if you want me to swear to secrecy I will, because a place to hide from the Berserkers is worth keeping any secret you might have." There. She had laid it all out on the table. Except what she suspected. That was still only a faint idea in the dark corner of her brain, and she refused to acknowledge it, especially when she didn't know what calling him out would mean.

"Really? Alright, fine. But before I tell you anything, swear to never reveal any of this. Under pain of death."

Heather held back a taunting smile, not wanting to antagonize him. "You wouldn't even kill those Berserkers. I highly doubt you could kill me for this."

Maour's voice was sad and cold at the same time. "Nobody said I'd be the one doing it."

Heather shivered. Well, there went the safeguard she _thought_ she had. "Fine. I swear on Odin himself to never reveal anything I learn, see, or hear here to anyone without your express permission."

"Great. But I still don't trust you."

That infuriated Heather. "What makes you think I'd break that?!" No one broke oaths on Odin's name, mostly because there was supposed to be some sort of horrible repercussion after one died. What it would be was never very clear, varying depending on what any given person had heard, been told, or just decided to make up on the spot, which made it even scarier.

Maour answered softly. "I made the chief of an entire village swear not to interfere in what I was doing. They lasted maybe two minutes before interfering anyway. What I can show people has a tendency of overriding oaths and promises."

Heather didn't accept that. "Well, I'm not them. I hold to the things I swear. No matter what."

"Even when the world you swore them in is shattered? When everything you thought you knew crumbled apart, and you're faced with a truth you don't like?" Maour sounded curious now, and his words didn't seem spontaneous. They seemed almost rehearsed.

Heather knew she was making another promise here. That she would face whatever truth he was going to reveal, like it or not. "Yes. What is this, some sort of cult?" The things he was saying seemed to fit that.

"No, no religious blasphemy involved here. Well, not that I'm aware of." He seemed to question that. "I don't think so, anyway. Tell me about the world, as you know it."

That was a strange request. "Where do I start?" It was a very vague specification.

"How about the creatures that live in this world."

Heather answered without thought. "Animals of all kinds, humans, dragons... That's it. Animals are everywhere, and dragons are somewhat spread out and rare nowadays. Humans are everywhere too, and settling new places all the time. Humans are the only intelligent ones, and-"

Maour cut her off. "Go back. Something you just said is wrong."

Heather thought about it. Her lingering suspicion started to look more plausible. "Is it about humans?"

Maour laughed. "No, though I'd argue the words 'Viking' and 'Intelligent' don't fit in the same sentence." He seemed amused but also apprehensive.

Heather frowned. "So, animals and dragons. I didn't say much about animals, which leaves dragons."

"Why did you separate the two? Most Vikings see dragons as animals, but you don't." It wasn't a question.

Heather tried to explain. "I didn't do it intentionally. It just seemed right to put them apart from everything else." They weren't animals, though they weren't the demons most Vikings referred to them as. They really didn't bother her, mostly because she always seemed to have bigger problems to deal with.

Maour seemed to accept that. "Okay. Come on." He started to lead her away again.

"Wait, you never told me what part is wrong! And I thought you were going to explain?" Heather was deeply unsettled by this strangeness.

Maour laughed. "Now? We don't have time! I have to relocate eight Berserkers off of this island by sundown!"

That sounded like an excuse, but Heather was starting to feel her repressed weariness return, so she didn't call him out on it. "Fine."

They continued to move through the forest, and after a while, the terrain fell off. Heather felt stone beneath her feet for a moment before something that might be moss, and when the ambient light seen through her blindfold faded, she knew where they must be. "Why are we in a cave?" Something else occurred to her. "It's pitch-black in here. How are you seeing?"

"It actually isn't entirely dark in here, but close enough." He never faltered, so clearly he knew exactly where they were going.

Heather abruptly smelled burning wax, and when Maour stopped she tried to figure out how many candles there were. She had nothing better to do because he still hadn't allowed her to take the blindfold off. Now that he was going to explain, she felt it better not to antagonize him by removing it early.

Maour grunted, his voice drowned out almost immediately by a series of metallic clangs. Once those had stopped, he left, his footsteps fading almost immediately. His steps were muted here. She assumed there was some type of moss on the ground. Now that she thought about it, she could feel it where she was standing too. It seemed quite springy, though it was thin. Maour quickly returned and repeated whatever he was doing several more times. Finally, he stopped and spoke to her. "You can take the blindfold off."

Heather removed the blindfold and quickly took stock of her surroundings. They were standing in a small cave that seemed to have been converted into a workshop of some kind. Desks and shelves lined the cave walls with stacks of blank parchment in a corner. She supposed he had been cleaning the space before. The cave was carpeted in some sort of grey-green moss, which she thought might be giving off a tiny amount of light. The candles in hollows in the walls overpowered whatever light the moss might have provided. Maour was standing in front of the only exit, watching her. Behind him was what looked like a heavy sheet, attached to the wall on one side, and attached to a latch on the other. She pointed to it questioningly.

Maour smiled. "Door. Keeps the light from the candles from spilling out, and doesn't make any noise."

Heather was utterly confused by that. "Why only have this tiny cave lit? We walked through way bigger areas than this."

Now his smile seemed almost taunting. "Because this is the only place I need the light, so that would be a waste of candles. Besides, the smell of candle-wax is annoying if it permeates the whole cave system. So I keep candles to a minimum."

Heather snorted. "Sure, because what seems to be fish and... whatever that is... is so much better." She didn't recognize the second, subtler smell.

Maour didn't answer that. "I don't have any beds, but the moss is comfortable enough. Don't leave this room. You'd never find your way anywhere anyway." He lifted the curtain, enough so that Heather could look out.

It was almost pitch black, but she thought if she squinted she could see the moss. It did give off a small amount of light. "Right. Got it."

Maour gestured to the room. "You probably shouldn't put the candles out. Relighting them without seeing them or having a flint would be tricky. Sleep for as long as you can. Ideally, wake up in the middle of the night. I'll be within earshot, so just yell when you're rested."

Heather had a question. "Seriously? Why the middle of the night?" As if she could even tell night and day in here.

"Night works better for me. And trust me, you don't want to leave this room." He left with those ominous words, closing the heavy curtain behind him. Heather noticed that it didn't cover the entire hole, leaving a healthy gap between its bottom and the mossy floor. She supposed that was so the person on her side wouldn't suffocate.

Heather was starting to wonder something, a more fundamental question. What exactly was Maour? He seemed normal enough, if a bit odd sometimes, but that was pushing it. Why request she sleep in the day and wake up at night? And he could somehow see fine in near pitch-black caves, apparently. She decided that she'd find out later. Her exhaustion was returning full force, and the moss now looked quite inviting.

* * *

Maour stood in the cave, just out of sight of the curtain. He wasn't particularly worried that Heather would go anywhere. She really wouldn't be able to see anything and by extension would be stuck there, but the pack was not taking any chances.

A Night Fury walked up to him, one with grey eyes. "Einfari," he greeted politely. "You're the guard?"

'My father says he wants a Nótt to do it.' Einfari shrugged her wings expressively. 'Mother was his first choice, but she said I should.'

"You're fine," Maour reassured her. "Just sit here and watch the curtain until she yells for me. I'll send someone to replace you if that takes more than a few hours."

'What is she like?' Einfari asked curiously.

"Beats me, I don't know much about her." Maour shook his head. "Don't let her know you exist. I didn't get the 'dragon hater' vibe from her, but she still might freak out, and it would really limit our options."

'Oh,' Einfari replied as if she had just thought of something, 'my father wants to talk to you.'

Maour sighed. "I figured as much."

Einfari's father, Nottletogi, was the patriarch of his family, but his distrust towards humans was so deeply rooted that his instinctual fear-induced aggression towards humans was almost impossible to overcome. Still, he was smart and logical and put forth a great effort in working with Maour to overcome his fearful instincts around humans. He was making progress but Maour was still concerned about him around Heather. She was an unprecedented example of one who entered the Night Fury caves without the whole pack first voting to allow it, hence the need for a guard.

Besides Maour, there were a few other humans on the island who had bonded with a dragon. Fishlegs would have made a good sentry as he was calm and observant but he and the others had recently flown off. They should actually be back by the end of the night, now that he thought about it. That would be helpful. It would be good to have more non-dragon people to deal with Heather.

For now, though, he had work to do, a lot of it. On that note... "Who's going to relocate the Vikings?"

'The Eldurs are doing it,' Einfari replied. 'They say they've got it, and that they place full confidence in whatever the pack decides in their absence.'

Well, that was nice, though actually having the Eldurs around to support him would have been better. "All of them?"

'No, Eldurský is staying with the hatchling.' Einfari laughed. 'Did you forget about Vartha again?'

The Eldur hatchling, who was less than a year old. "It's easy to do when I've never even seen her." No one outside the Eldur family had. That was just how things worked, it seemed. He wasn't stupid enough to question it. Not when the entire Eldur family took turns guarding the entrances to their section of the caves most of the time.

"Have fun," Maour quipped as he headed deeper into the caves, toward the central cavern. He didn't hear any response from Einfari as he left.

"Toothless, how goes things in there?" He knew his brother was already giving the pack his half of the report, which wasn't much.

'We've been done for a few minutes. Hurry up, Nóttleiðtogi is not happy right now.'

Great. He wanted to catch any possible relapse Nóttleiðtogi might have early. Another bout of panicked paranoia would not be fun for anyone... except maybe Nóttreiði, Nóttleiðtogi's son. He was still spiteful towards Toothless and avoided the human residents of the island as if his life depended on it.

Toothless met Maour at the base of the cave and flew him up to the spire that rose in the center, the perfectly-formed place for one to be seen by all. With Einfari busy guarding Heather and the absence of the twins with their bonded dragons, not to mention the entire Eldur family, the ledges on which the whole pack normally gathered were not as full as usual. There were still enough of them there to handle this.

'Maour, how goes the prisoner?' Nóttleiðtogi got straight to the point, his voice on edge.

"She's a normal human," Maour answered honestly. "I can't judge much on ten minutes of talking in these circumstances."

'What can you judge? Your brother says she did not lie.' Nóttskarpur warbled curiously.

"That she's willing to keep any secret I share with her, and that she wants to stay here." The problem was, he couldn't really feel her interests out without giving something away, and he couldn't give anything away until he had figured out her possible opinions on the subject.

'We need more to go on,' Shadow agreed. He was Maour's adoptive father and patriarch of his family. He flashed a grin at Mour.. 'But she will keep the truth hidden?'

"She swore a pretty strong oath voluntarily, with the hope that it would get me to talk." Maour grinned back. "That's pretty helpful." He wasn't sure what they'd do with her if she turned out to be some rabid dragon-hater, but once she had found out about what really lived here, she couldn't just go back into the world. She would remain here until she was not hostile, one way or another.

'All of this could be manipulation,' Nóttleiðtogi objected.

Maour winced. Paranoia, even if that was an appropriate response, was not good. "Yes, it could."

'Then we must tell her the bare minimum, and gauge her reaction,' Shadow concluded. 'The things that are common knowledge elsewhere.'

'If we must,' Nóttskarpur agreed, casting a look at her mate. 'I speak for us in this decision.'

It seemed Nóttleiðtogi was not going to let his own fears affect how they handled all of this too much. That was smart, though Nóttleiðtogi had the advantage of having gone through all of this before. He knew which mistakes to avoid this time around. It was his fault, after all, that Maour had been able to bring Fishlegs and the twins in on all of this without any real argument, an earlier maneuver on Nóttleiðtogi's part gone wrong.

'The Eldurs support us,' Cloey announced, having just entered the cave. 'Eldurský says to be careful, but not too careful.'

'The Svarturs support this,' Shadow announced as his mate joined him on their ledge. 'Von is not present at the moment, but I don't think she would object.'

'You know our opinion on things like this,' one of the Myrkurs yelled out. 'Go ahead!'

"And Blast and Boom aren't even here," Maour wryly muttered to Toothless. "Or the twins."

'So?' Toothless shook his head. 'Just be glad they're with us, not against us.'

That was true. This was a difficult enough decision without the Myrkurs deciding to object.

'So it is decided. Maour will tell her of his past, but nothing else. We will all hold to a no-flight rule until further information is determined.' Shadow shook his head wryly. 'Fishing is necessary, but we should all do it off the far edge of the island, and stay close to the water. We need to stay out of sight.'

With that, most of the Furies left, the Myrkurs almost rushing for the exits. They, as a rule, didn't like to sit still very long.

Maour nodded to Nóttleiðtogi, who had caught his eye.

'You're going to deal with him now?' Toothless asked carefully.

"Help, but yes." These sessions were private, which also excluded Toothless. His brother understood the need, even if he didn't like it. Nóttleiðtogi was a private person.

Without any further words, Toothless let Maour onto his back and took off, following Nóttleiðtogi out another way, through the caves on foot, and then back into the air, headed for the forest.

They set down there. Maour got off of Toothless, who promptly walked off into the forest, leaving Maour and Nóttleiðtogi alone.

Nóttleiðtogi slumped slightly. This was the only time Maour ever saw him relax, though he assumed relaxed was normal when Nóttleiðtogi was at home. The dragon never let outsiders see behind the front he put up.

'Maour,' Nóttleiðtogi greeted civilly. 'I cannot blame you for this one... Not much, anyway.'

"Togi, we both know I couldn't just let them leave with her," Maour sighed. Years of therapy and Nóttleiðtogi still was not over his fears... and Maour still didn't know the full story. Nóttleiðtogi had never told him, and he had not pressed the older dragon. It was a huge concession when Nóttleiðtogi had told him he could use the name Togi in these sessions at all. Short names for dragons were only used by friends or family.

'Yes. And now I must not...' Nóttleiðtogi shook his head, growling. 'This is no different, but it feels different. We do not know anything about her. She is dangerous.'

"Not that dangerous," Maour objected. "No weapon, no night vision, and no way off of this island."

'Help me,' Nóttleiðtogi whined, losing his composure entirely. 'It has been years since I have felt this fear, and I do not know how to push it back again.'

Maour strode forward and put a hand on Nóttleiðtogi's forehead. "Calm down. You can still do this, right?"

'You are different. I cannot even do this with the other humans.'

"And that is fine. But as long as you can feel calm around one of us, you don't need to be too worried about one more." He spoke in a soothing tone of voice. "I'm going to figure her out, and if she's like the rest of us by some strange chance, then all is well and good. Would you be okay with that?"

'I am still not sure about the twins,' Nóttleiðtogi griped wryly. 'They do not seem to be dragon lovers so much as lovers of chaos. It just so happens we are chaos, to them. As long as they keep their distance and are not a threat, I can forget they exist.'

That was pretty much the best Maour figured he could expect for now. "You know someday that might not be the case." Einfari, in particular, had actually asked him to keep an eye out for humans who might be a good match for her, though he had never found any.

'If that day arrives, I will deal with it... with your help,' Nóttleiðtogi admitted. 'Today I just need to calm down.'

"I'll get it figured out as quickly as I can," Maour promised. "I don't like not knowing either."

'But at least you do not have to fight yourself every minute she is here.' Nóttleiðtogi spoke simply, not complaining so much as stating a fact. 'Even with Einfari on guard, I worry.'

Maour wondered why Nóttleiðtogi didn't worry _more_ with his own daughter guarding the prisoner, but then again it wasn't like Nóttleiðtogi's fears were logical. The dragon himself was, but his fear was definitely not.

"Maybe look at this as an opportunity to improve?" Maour suggested.

A level stare was his only response.

"Yeah, it was a long shot." Maour grinned. "Do you want to work on it today?"

Nóttleiðtogi seemed to consider it. 'No, not today. I am conflicted enough as it is. You may wish to go check on the Eldurs though, as they might miss something important on the ship.'

That was a distinct possibility. Normally Fishlegs would be with them, but this time they had no humans eyes to check it over. "Good point."

With that, he left the area and called for Toothless, his mind already on their next task. Heather was probably still asleep anyway.

* * *

Heather woke up sometime later. She had no idea how much later, for obvious reasons. She stretched and idly decided to pull open the curtain-door, noting as she did that Maour had neglected to provide more water or food. The fact that Maour had said not to open the curtain had slipped her mind.

Beyond the curtain was darkness… and two large, grey eyes, catching the dim candlelight, staring back at her. She numbly backed up, allowing the curtain to fall back down. She figured she must be seeing things in her groggy state. Those eyes were huge!

Heather stared at the unmoving curtain for a moment to convince herself she didn't just see some feral beast. Just as she was content that it was all her imagination, those eyes reappeared as an almost invisible black head nosed the curtain aside to stare at her.

She let out a small shriek and scrambled back, almost knocking her head on a protruding wooden shelf on the far wall of the small cavern, breathing as if she had just run around the island a few times without stopping. It was too close, and too big. She was dead-

If it was not what she dreaded, what she had refused to consider as a possibility this entire time.

The outcast boy from Berk had brought a dragon to heel, and was still out in the world with two Night Furies. Dragons that tolerated and even listened to a human.

What else could explain how she was still not dead? This matched the whispered descriptions she had obtained from Berkians what felt like a lifetime ago, though Alvin had not wanted to hear of rumors so much as solid fact on Berk's defenses. A black dragon, smaller than one would expect. That was all anyone could agree on, and the rest she discounted as fiction intended to impress. It seemed she had been right to be skeptical of the conflicting details, if this was a Night Fury.

If this was a Night Fury… her mind was spinning, her emotions curiously far from reach. She felt as if she could run around the island if needed, but at the same time felt curiously weak. This she knew, the feeling only imminent danger could produce.

The dragon had not moved, still staring with those large eyes.

Dragons always went for the kill. There was not supposed to be hesitation, let alone whatever this was.

But how could she know? It was important to be sure of whether or not this was a dragon that for some reason obeyed a human, as opposed to a feral monster taking sadistic pleasure in her fear before eating her.

How could she know? She was _not _getting any closer to it. Was there any way to be sure? Something that might give her a sign?

Well, she could always yell for Maour… if he was close enough to hear her. If this wasn't just a feral dragon that would leap and disembowel her the moment she did anything, or just once it got tired of whatever she was doing that was amusing it at the moment.

No, she couldn't count on help. But she had to do something.

What had his name been? The boy who was exiled, who exiled himself and left on the back of a dragon?

Hiccup. A strange name for a strange person. But she needed to be _sure_ what she did would indicate whether or not the dragon was his.

Surely it would recognize his name. Maybe using the dragon's name would be better, if it even had one, but she didn't know that. Nobody she had spoken to had ever mentioned a name for either of the beasts. The name of the owner was all she had.

"Good… dragon…" she began quietly. No reaction. But what if..? "Hiccup."

Those grey eyes widened, and the ears Heather had not really noticed shot up, a visible notification that what she had just said meant something.

She felt like collapsing then and there, so relieved she could cry. This had to be the trained dragon, one of the two, and Maour had to be Hiccup. She had hoped this was not the case, had actively dismissed the possibility, but faced with the alternative of being cornered by a feral dragon, she would take this in a heartbeat.

The dragon huffed air out of its nostrils. Heather could feel the hot air from her position on the other side of the small room.

Heather knew who Maour was now. Although she was pretty good at detecting lies, and she still thought he had been telling the truth about Maour being his name. Now, maybe, his name was Maour, but it had not always been.

Actually, she was assuming something she shouldn't. There was no reason to think there was only one man on this island. Maour and Hiccup could be two different people.

Well, maybe… "Maour."

A snort, followed by an impossibly _human _gesture. How in the world had it learned to roll its eyes?!

"Okay…" A sarcastic gesture. If this was a human, it would make sense, as if to say 'you only now figured that out?' But it wasn't a human in this case. The fact that it made sense might be a coincidence, but she could check. All she had to do was insult the dragon in a sweet voice. If it didn't mind, she would know it didn't actually understand anything other than names.

She needed to know what she was dealing with, because it wasn't going away.

"So, you know those names…" she kept her voice soft and sweet, though that was difficult given her current situation. She still felt a little like screaming. "Are you so stupid that-"

A low and threatening growl cut her off, even though she had been speaking as nicely as possible.

She drew in a shuddering breath. It was looking like the reason Hiccup could work with this Night Fury was that it knew what he was saying. That was… unprecedented. Dragons were not that smart… but this one was.

And if it could understand her meaning, she might be able to actually get somewhere by talking. As long as it stayed there, she could try that.

"His name wasn't always Maour, was it?" She would start with an easy question. "Maour and Hiccup are the same person."

The Fury didn't respond.

"Can we just pretend this didn't happen?" She would rather not find out what Maour would do now that his secret was out.

A considering look, and then a nod. That honestly was not at all what she had been expecting. Any chance she was just assigning intelligence to coincidence vanished.

"We can?" She pointed to the curtain above the dragon's head. "You'll just go back out there and forget this happened?"  
Another nod.

"Okay…" She wasn't sure what to do now, but ending this surreal encounter sounded great. "Go."

Nothing. It remained flat against the ground, staring intently.

"What? I don't have anything for you." There was a distinct difference between this and an animal begging for food, one of tone and intelligence, but she had no other ideas. "I've got nothing you would want. No food, no water, nothing. I don't have _anything_ at all, including family, friends, a home, or an actual life."

The dragon inched forward, still looking right at her.

"No!" She held out a hand, hoping she wouldn't lose it. This room was way too small, and the dragon way too big, at least compared to her, for it to come in here. She did _not_ want to be in close quarters with one of the most dangerous types of dragon in existence. Not when she didn't have so much as a belt knife to defend herself with.

It stopped, never breaking eye contact. Then the curtain started to rise, a wing lifting it.

"Hey, quit it. Someone might see the light." This was supposed to go unnoticed.

A very, very deliberate nod, and the curtain raised higher still.

Was it actually trying to pressure her into letting it get closer with the threat of discovery?

"I'm telling Maour this was all you," she retorted. "He'll believe me if I start screaming at him about hiding dragons here." This was his dragon, so surely he carried some authority with it.

The curtain lowered slightly, but the dragon did not look impressed. It snorted, shaking its head.

"What? It would work. It's not like you can tell him differently…"

Maybe that wasn't true. Maybe this dragon did have a way of telling its side, or of straight-up lying and convincing Maour of… whatever it wanted. This simple type of communication wasn't quite enough to do that, but maybe there was more.

She was not used to maneuvering against a dragon, let alone one that seemed to have the upper hand.

"You don't want to be caught either. You're bluffing." Heather crossed her arms. "You definitely have more to lose than I do." Anyone would. She had already lost everything.

A disbelieving look, and a slight tilt of the head. It looked eerily like someone trying to say 'go on' without words.

But if this thing had been living around Maour, it was possible it knew exactly the message it was sending.

Thinking of this dragon as 'it' just wasn't working anymore. "Are you a girl or a boy?"

A considering look.

Maybe she should phrase that differently. "Are you a girl?"

The dragon nodded decisively.

"Are you a boy?" She wanted to be sure it understood.

A glare, and a shake of the head. Okay, it- no, she, understood and was not amused with Heather trying to make sure.

What had they been doing before this little tangent? The dragon was trying to pressure her with the threat of exposure, she had retorted by calling its bluff, and it had almost asked her to explain.

"Put that curtain down," Heather repeated. "I called your bluff, remember?"

A soft warble. That was a sound Heather had never heard before. It was strangely melodic, for such a large creature.

"Come on, do it." She shook her head. "I don't have anything to give you in return. Just a sad story and a promise to not tell Maour about this."

The dragon nodded deliberately. It wanted… well, if it understood her, maybe it wanted to hear her talk? That was ridiculous.

"You don't want to hear about me," she muttered. "Why would you?"

A soft bark. It stared at her, tilting its head.

"You do want to hear my story," she deadpanned. It nodded in return. There's not much to tell." This was not something she wanted to talk about. "I have nothing to lose, because I've already lost everything."

Another tilt of the head. Yes, it was definitely telling her to keep talking.

"Put that down and I'll talk," Heather offered. "Though why you would care…"

The wing and by extension the curtain fell entirely, landing on the dragon's snout. She snorted, sending it away for a moment, though it immediately fell back onto her large black snout.

"Eager, aren't you." Well, a deal was a deal, especially when made with someone who could kill and eat her in an instant if they wanted to. "I lived my entire life on my island with my mother and father. When I was about sixteen, we were attacked by Outcasts while returning from a visit to a nearby island."

A sad whine.

Heather laughed sarcastically. "That's not why I have nothing, but it's a good place to start given my life was normal up until that point. They captured all three of us and wanted me to do something. Alvin wanted me to go to an island called Berk, and find out their secrets, mostly military ones, and tell him. I had to do it, or he would kill my parents. So, he set up a fake shipwreck, and I 'washed up' on Berk."

The dragon seemed entirely engrossed in her story. Heather wasn't sure why, but telling all of it to someone else, even a dragon, made the pain of the rest of her story seem just a little less, so she continued with little difficulty. "I met Stoick the Vast, and his heir Snotlout. And a girl named Astrid, who didn't like me. I was a good actor, so no one suspected anything. I learned things. That the real heir had done... something, and been outcast. That Berk had found the nest, and killed some massive dragon."

This was where her story got a bit strange. She continued quietly. "But something didn't feel right. Eventually, I started hearing other things. Little things. That the real heir, Hiccup, had been crazy. He had left with two Night Furies, and somehow they killed a massive dragon at the Nest. Then he had exiled himself from Berk. Little pieces from different people, told in whispers, as if they weren't supposed to be talking about it. The blacksmith in particular. He seemed to almost be feeding me information, now that I think about it. Still, it wasn't easy, and I really don't know much, even now. Eventually, Alvin pulled me out. I told him everything, but he wouldn't let me or my parents go. We were there for a few months. That was horrible. But my father found a way out after a while, and we managed to sneak off of Outcast island." Heather took a deep breath. "We were happy for a few years, back on our home island, with our small village."

The Fury crooned sadly. It sounded oddly close-

Oh, it had crept forward again while she was distracted.

"You're a sneak, you know that?" She scowled at the dragon. "Do you even care, or was this just a trick to distract me?"

The dragon whined, looking away, before looking back and moving its ears intently. Apparently, it wasn't a trick.

Was reading this dragon's emotions and intentions getting easier, or was it just exaggerating everything to be sure she understood? That wasn't really important, but Heather wondered anyway.

She had gone this far. There was no reason not to finish the story. "Then, about a year ago a whole armada attacked our island. There was no warning, no mercy given. The Berserkers killed everyone they found. I had been out on a fishing trip with a friend, and we came home to find nothing but burned buildings, bodies, and Berserker soldiers. Three of them caught us. And..."

Heather held back tears and forced herself to continue, feeling that she couldn't stop midway through. "They killed my friend then and there, but they took one look at me and spared me. I managed to get away from them before they could bring me back to their armada."

These were memories she didn't think about for a reason. "I managed to take my fishing boat to the next island over. The last time I saw my home, there wasn't a single living person in the burned hull that had been from our village. I thought it was over."

She let out a sad, tired sigh. "It wasn't. They never stopped coming after me. Eventually, they got lucky and caught me. That's how I got here. No family, no friends, nowhere to go, and an insane chief of a powerful tribe setting his entire fleet in search of me." She thumped her fist on the ground. "And I still don't know why. That hurts almost as much as what he did. So yeah, I've got nothing to lose."

The dragon, her eyes wide and not at all threatening, inched forward again. At this point, Heather was pretty sure no one was around to see anything anyway, given how long this entire encounter had been going on, but she didn't really care if the dragon came closer. Like she had just said, she had nothing to lose, and if it had intended to do something, she would be helpless to stop it. Besides…

"You're going to have to explain to Maour where I am if I mysteriously vanish," she warned. "And he's not going to buy that I escaped."

The dragon had the gall to look insulted by that, pulling her tail in under the curtain and sitting upright by the exit, filling more than half of the small cave with her bulk.

"Now what?" Heather shifted backwards, moving away until she hit the desk- all of two feet away from those oddly flat paws and sharp claws.

The dragon snorted, so close that it ruffled her hair, and leaned in, its eyes locked on hers.

She held the stare, refusing to be intimidated… or at least refusing to let on that she was very much intimidated.

Then it leaned back and stuck a paw out at about head-level, inches from her face. She jerked back, not wanting to be scratched by the claws.

A sheepish warble, and the claws retracted. The paw, on the other hand, did not. What was this?

Then the dragon's ears abruptly perked up, and it jerked back in turn, looking panicked. It scrambled out of the room, almost ripping the curtain off of the doorway in its haste to leave.

Someone must have been coming. Heather moved to stand right beside the doorway, straining to hear anything useful.

Nothing. Just a few grunts and warbles she was pretty sure were all from her guard.

Or maybe they weren't. Maybe that was another dragon out there, checking up on her guard. Had they seen anything? She would rather not have the one watching her get in trouble, not for something that was partially her fault.

She was empathizing with a dragon. Could this day… possibly night now… get any odder?

Time passed, but her guard did not return, and Heather was not about to risk opening the curtain again. The other dragon might have come to replace the one she knew, and she did not want to trust her near-nonexistent luck again. Once was enough.

Eventually, she heard Maour talking in the distance, and yelled as he had instructed.

Maour pulled the curtain back and smiled at her. "So ready to learn what you don't know?" He seemed genuinely excited now if still a little wary.

Heather nodded, trying to hide a small smile. She already knew the important part, thanks to her… friend? Acquaintance? Guard? Whatever. She was convinced that dragon was intent on manipulating her.

_**Author's Note: **_**Fun fact! Heather's horrible backstory, the whole 'village razed to the ground, everybody dead' bit, is almost entirely canon. One of the few times I didn't need to change much to make it as dark as necessary. They snuck that news in via Johann during Heather's reintroductory two-part in RTTE.**

**As an aside, in case anyone was wondering, I did draw the thumbnail for this story myself. It's a talent I am far less skilled in than writing, but I'm not bad. Also, that's the spoiler-free version of the thumbnail. It'll change a little once the time comes...**


	3. Chapter 3

"So let me see if I've got this straight." Heather stuck a twig upright into a circular depression in the sand by her crossed legs, noting that the moon was so bright it actually threw a faint shadow. "You were offered everything on a silver platter, and instead decided to publicly say a nice big-"

"No thank you," Maour hastily cut her off. "Yes, correct."

She held in a grin. For someone who had done that, he was easy to embarrass. "After killing the thing everybody was so excited to finally get at."

"Not like they knew it was there," he muttered. "And it wasn't really me so much as Toothless and Cloey."

"Right." She twisted the stick, driving it further into one of the three eyes visible on a very rudimentary sketch of the Queen dug into the sand. "And why do you call it the Queen, exactly? If anything deserved the title of 'demon', that would be it. What made it different?"

"Aside from its size?" Maour shrugged. "The name just fit."  
Right. He was lying this time. She could read him, the oddity with the names notwithstanding.

He was lying about a lot of this, actually. Or leaving things out. Sure, the story made sense… if she assumed he was the luckiest now ex-Viking in the archipelago. Dragons wouldn't naturally do what he said they did. Toothless would have to be a mind-reader to so easily go along with Maour's every plan. Not once was there mention of confusion, or the difficulty in training a dragon to follow any orders, or anything of the sort. The way he explained it, they both just understood each other. She knew that the Night Fury could understand, but there was never a mention of training, or explaining his plan, or even of miscommunication, which had to have happened. Apparently, everything worked out perfectly in regards to communication, even though one of them couldn't talk. That wasn't possible.

"Why didn't the other one kill you?" She made it sound causal. "You said you were made to fight it in the arena on Berk but ended up flying off on its back. I'm sure that if all it took was not attacking, somebody would have figured it out by now." A child or someone who was injured surely would have stumbled across that little trick, but that wasn't all. She knew, from the rumors Maour didn't know she had heard, that he had spoken to that dragon. This was a test.

"Well… it's a bit more involved, but that's the general idea. Vikings like to attack mindlessly, so I guess it's not so weird nobody put two and two together?" He shrugged as if stymied by that.

Yeah, he was lying again. He had such obvious tells it wasn't even funny. Even reading old bartenders who might or might not turn her over to Berserkers was harder than this, and those guys were all the same, give or take a few warts; a smile if they intended to sell her out, or a lack of interest if they couldn't care less. Or, a sly grin if they intended to slip her something just to ensure they collected any potential bounties, one that meant she needed to leave immediately. High stakes meant fast learning.

But she didn't call him out on any of it. He had reasons to hold back, and she needed to remain on his good side if she wanted to convince him to let her stay permanently. This place, from the very little she had seen of it, was wild but not inhospitable. If he could survive long-term, so could she.

"So…" She looked up, taking in the empty beach. "I'm going to assume they didn't just strand you here. Toothless and…"

"Cloey." A sly grin. "No, of course not. That's one of the many reasons I'd prefer to remain anonymous out here."

She might be far more concerned if it weren't for her confusing encounter with a Night Fury earlier. Cloey? Maour spoke of Toothless as a 'he', and that would bring the dragon count to the two she knew existed, Toothless being the one who checked up on the one she assumed was Cloey. Yes, that made sense…

But he was still hiding way too much for her to be sure.

"So, do I get to meet them, or are they your imaginary friends?" She made her voice skeptical. "I see no proof of any of this."

Maour met her eyes, looking entirely serious. "Would you want to meet them? Because if the honest answer is no, maybe it is all just a story. Maybe I leave you on the shore to flag down a passing ship, and you tell them there's absolutely nothing here worth even thinking about."

She took a moment to honestly consider that veiled offer… but only a moment. "I'd rather meet them."

He chuckled. "Well then, maybe you should turn around before Toothless succeeds in smelling your hair without you knowing about it."

She didn't move. There was no way anything was that quiet. She had spent months on the run, and her senses were-

A soft snort sent a very hot and vaguely fishy wind down the back of her neck.

So much for her senses being good. She blindly stuck a hand behind her, not all that worried, and felt around for a muzzle, assuming it was close. "Quit it."

The dragon, she wasn't sure which yet, nudged her back, warbling at her.

"You're very calm about this," Maour noted with more than a hint of surprise.

Rats. She needed to be less suspiciously okay with this. She scuttled away, moving on her hands and knees across the sand a short way, not bothering to stand. "Define calm."

Some distance created, she turned to look. Yes, if that was a Night Fury, she had definitely interacted with one earlier. This one was a bit bulkier and had green eyes, making him the one Maour called Toothless. He was staring calmly, not advancing.

Hopefully, this one was less pushy. "So that's a Night Fury. They're…" She thought back to the stories, trying to recover what she might have thought if this had actually been a revelation. "Smaller than I assumed they would be."

A disgruntled snort. She noted with amusement that both Maour and the dragon seemed insulted by that.

"I don't think I need to remind you that they're the only dragons Vikings run and hide from," Maour commented.

"Maybe they wouldn't if they knew what they were hiding from." She was pushing him, and she knew it, but it was funny, and she very much doubted he was the kind of person to set a Night Fury on her in retaliation for a joke.

"No, bud, don't tackle her and lick her until she apologizes," Maour abruptly continued, staring at Toothless. "She doesn't deserve that level of punishment."

Was he serious? Now that she thought about it, Toothless did seem to be eyeing her with something in mind… she scooted a little further away.

"Just go for the normal introduction, I think." Maour waved a hand in Heather's direction.

Toothless obediently walked over to her, eyes wide and innocent. She wasn't buying it.

"No licking," she commanded, feeling slightly guilty and somewhat annoyed. This level of interaction didn't match what she had felt with the other dragon earlier, and she was pretty sure both man and dragon here were acting. That, or Toothless was really, really simple compared to the one she assumed was Cloey.

A distinctly deep stare was the only response she got, a nonverbal 'you don't get to tell me what to do'. The dragon, after a good few seconds of that, stuck out its snout.

Clearly, she was supposed to imitate what Maour had told her of doing… "What does this mean, exactly?"

For some reason, that made Maour uncomfortable. "Right now, nothing except 'hello'. But that's not all."

"Hello, then." She put a hand perilously close to the closed mouth, resting it on the nose. "Do I get to meet the other one?"

"Actually…" Maour paused, staring at her. "I mean, you can if you want to. Toothless?"

Toothless cast Maour a long-suffering glance before darting off into the trees.

"He'll be back soon. I think Cloey is probably by the caverns," Maour muttered, cutting himself off quite abruptly.

Something was odd here. She decided to go with a semi-innocent question. "So, how smart are they?"

"Dragons?" Another subtle flinch. She was on the track to something. "Well, smarter than the average Viking, though that's not saying much." He smiled weakly.

"But still not like us," she pushed, thinking of Cloey from earlier even as she said that. Cloey was like her. But Maour didn't know Heather knew that...

"I don't know about that," Maour muttered. "I know a few as questioning and curious as you."

She might have continued that line of questioning, but Toothless interrupted her, followed by-

She held in her shock as well as she could, knowing that what remained could be interpreted as just general shock from seeing another dragon so close.

This was not the Night Fury she had interacted with earlier. The one from before had sported grey eyes and no scars. This one had a strangely scarred back and green eyes, like Toothless.

So Maour knew at least three Night Furies, not two. There was one lie laid bare. An understandable one, all in all, but still a lie.

But she still didn't want to reveal what she knew, so she went through the motions of introducing herself to the other Fury. This one acted just as reserved and careful. Clearly, this was all a carefully scripted act.

"So, now what?" She wanted to know where the script was supposed to lead. "I assume this isn't all there is to your life."

"A beach and a cave," Maour mused. Toothless had sat down beside him, while Cloey disappeared back into the trees. Neither had flown in her presence, oddly. "No, there's more, and given you'll be here at least a few more days, I guess you need to know your way around, at least a little." He stood.

A tour, of sorts, she supposed. "Like what?"

"Well, the garden, for one thing." He shrugged, leading the way. "It's not much, but it means I don't live off of fish alone. That just doesn't work."

"Why not?" That was an interesting statement. "And why fish, anyway? Dragons take livestock."

"Took livestock, and not for themselves." He shoved aside a hanging branch, leading her towards the mountain centered in the background. "But they eat fish, normally. I tried, but it made me sick to only eat fish. And going to villages for food constantly is okay, but it's not safe enough to rely only on that."

Heather didn't ask any more questions, engrossed in making sure she didn't trip. How in the world was he doing this? She could barely see her feet here in the forest, the moonlight filtered and as a result no help whatsoever.

Thankfully, they got there quicker this time around, and walked out into the moonlight of a small, already somewhat overgrown clearing, set against a steep rocky slope, right at the base of the mountain. There were some small plants there, a few potato plants being easiest to recognize.

"I keep this running," Maour explained, kneeling by one of the plants, "and I don't need to go to civilization very often."

He was being very careful to say 'I' and not 'we'. She wasn't sure if that was because of his hiding a third Fury, or if it was something else. "Do the dragons eat any of it?"

"If they're feeling adventurous, but generally they don't care for anything but fish." Maour smirked at the disgruntled rumble coming from the Night Fury, who was stalking through the garden, glaring at the plants.

"And he doesn't like them," Maour quite unnecessarily supplied. "Last time he tried something new, it gave him an upset stomach."

A mocking gurgle emanated from the Night Fury, who sat on his hind legs and mimed kicking out at a nearby bush.

Heather caught Maour's flinch out of the corner of her eye, and noted that Toothless immediately cut it out.

So, they were definitely hiding how intelligent Night Furies were. The question was, why?

That had an easy answer. So that she would underestimate Toothless. If she thought Maour was the only intelligent creature on the island, she would be more likely to play her hand, and also more likely to play it badly.

If she had a hand to play. But this was something she had no interest in spoiling. Let the dragon-man and his Night Furies live in peace here, hidden from the cruel and pointless world. They'd keep her hidden too if she could get permission to stay, and that was all she wanted. A place to hide from the Berserkers.

So, should she tell Maour what she knew?

Something stopped her, a gut feeling that said she had better be entirely certain there were no other big secrets to be learned before she revealed her knowledge.

* * *

The rest of that night was spent simply. Heather was given a chance to wash off the grime, dry sweat, and dust of captivity by the small stream that led to the ocean, some fruit and scorched fish to eat, and pretty much nothing else.

"You don't have any spare clothing?" She wasn't in desperate need yet, but it would have been nice.

Maour shrugged apologetically. "Let's just say that if I do, I don't know where it's kept, and I don't have permission to take any." He cast a significant glance at Toothless, who stared right back.

Right. There was no way the dragon had clothes but wasn't sharing them. More things she did not know. "And what do you wear?"

"Armor," Maour replied seriously, tugging at his scale gauntlets. "It's all one thing, underclothes and armor combined. And believe me, this was not easy to make comfortable."

Well, if it was comfortable now… "Fine. It was wishful thinking anyway." She yawned. It was strange, being up this late for absolutely no real reason.

"It'll be sunrise in an hour or so," Maour estimated. "Time to return to the caverns, I think."

She might have objected, but part of her was hoping her guard would be present. So, she said nothing and let Maour leave her there in the same emptied-out side cavern with lit candles and a hanging cloth doorway.

But… how could she be sure it would be the same guard? To check would be to risk being noticed by someone less likely to tolerate her breaking one of the few rules.

The question was resolved when the same black snout and grey eyes pushed the curtain aside. Her friend was back.

"Just get in here," Heather began, standing against the wall. "It's not like I could stop you." After the last encounter, Maour's story, and interacting with Toothless and Cloey, she felt a bit safer.

Her guard quickly slipped in, letting the curtain flutter back. They were in close quarters once again.

This time, there was something else in the mood of the moment. Tension. Something was different.

"What..?" Heather tried not to flinch when a black, soft fin came up and slapped down on her shoulder. "Hey!"

A paw with sharp claws grabbed her leg. Okay, now this was-

Pain erupted in her skull, a sharp splitting headache that slammed into her out of nowhere. She barely even noticed that the dragon had also collapsed, wrapped up in trying to remember how to breathe, falling almost bonelessly, barely missing the shelf on her way down. It wasn't quite bad enough to knock her out on its own, but it was close.

After a while, the pain receded, slowly drawing back and fading for no apparent reason, departing as randomly as it had arrived, if much slower on the way out. Heather kept her eyes closed, sprawled where she had fallen, trying to figure out what had just happened.

It had hit both of them. But not until they had actually made contact.

But she had done the same with both Toothless and Cloey. Nothing had happened…

'There. Now I can be sure.'

A soft but stern voice, one that sounded like it came from a girl around Heather's age, give or take a few years. What-

Heather's eyes shot open, but she saw nobody. There was nobody else around, and the dragon didn't even seem to have heard it, slinking out with its ears down, leaving her alone.

Was she hallucinating? Had one final blow to her sanity broken her? She didn't feel crazy.

'I should talk to myself.'

The voice was still there, sounding like it was right next to her. She spun around, feeling oddly disoriented. Where was it coming from?!

She could feel a strange pulsing from some small part of her mind, but she ignored that. The remnants of that strange headache were nothing compared to this.

'I need to think. How did I get into this mess?'

How did she… was this her own mind speaking to her? No, because she wasn't crazy. But it made sense despite that.

'I should talk out loud.'

It had already said that. She needed to talk out loud? To answer her own mind? Why wouldn't she be able to think at it?

Fine. "I got into this mess because I was caught by Berserkers."

An immediate follow-up. 'I didn't intend to be here.'

"Of course not." The voice didn't feel like her own, but it spoke as if it was a part of her.

'And what do I really want out of this?'

At least these were questions she could answer. "I want to hide here. This place has someone who will keep it secret, even if he does hang out with dragons."

'I could turn him in…' a leading statement.

But she had already gone over this. "But I won't, because that makes no sense. Why should I ruin what he has? I don't benefit from it. The Berserkers will not stop." No reward would be better than a place of secrecy. Besides, Maour was kind enough, and she did sort of owe him for rescuing her, all in all.

'Why are they chasing me?'

"I wish I knew." She sighed. If this voice was her own, it was as if that part of her had memory loss, which was annoying.

'I don't want to hurt or exploit dragons.' A questioning lilt.

"Since when have dragons ever been a problem in my life?" She couldn't help but laugh bitterly. "Humans are the ones that ruin my life at every opportunity."

'And I can manipulate Maour into helping me stay safe. I'm using him.'

"I wouldn't put it like that, but yes." This was getting oddly specific, and that feeling in the back of her head wasn't going away. Were the two really connected? "I'd rather he just let me stay."

'He won't do that until he has satisfied the requirements placed upon him,' the voice said, now speaking far more confidently, and sounding a lot less like how she would think with every word. 'The pack is cautious and my Father is paranoid.'

Pack? Father?

She had been tricked. It hit her like that suspicious headache had, and she groaned in some mix of frustration and embarrassment. How had she not connected the dots? Somehow, Maour and the Night Furies were very good at communicating, and now this other oddness… the grey-eyed Fury had done something to her that let her hear it, or hear someone, in her mind.

And it had immediately played her like a well-worn Viking panpipe, dredging through what she really thought about everything, using her confusion to get unsuspecting, unguarded answers.

"Clever trick," Heather said aloud. "I did think that voice was a bit forgetful, all in all."

'But you still told nothing but the truth,' the female replied smugly. 'I got lucky and smelled it on you.'

This had to be the grey-eyed Fury. "What…" She decided to hold that particular question for later in favor of a more important one. "What did you do to me?"

'I made sure I could question you without you knowing what was going on, because Maour would spend weeks slowly,' and here the voice became heavy with frustration, 'and carefully going over every little thing five times, giving you every opportunity to change your mind and get off the island. My father is already nearly inconsolable. We need to be faster about all of this, even if the pack wouldn't approve. I'm just doing what needed to be done.'

Well… practical, if nothing else. "So I'm really hearing you."

'Yes, but not for long if I decide so.' A strange rumble. 'I am moderately certain we are compatible, but if you put one paw wrong I'll snap this link faster than you can react.'

She spoke as if it was a privilege, which it might be, but Heather didn't see it that way. "Then snap it now, because I never asked for this. You forced it on me!"

Really, the more she thought about it, the worse it felt. "You gained my trust, cornered me, and put something in my head without my consent." She felt betrayed. What else was new? But this hurt more than it should have.

'I did, but it was necessary.' An uncertain growl. 'It was necessary,' she repeated.

"Was it really? You just said Maour was working towards the same thing you tried to get at now," Heather said angrily. "Seems to me this was just you being impatient!"

'Maybe I was!' A snarl Heather heard from the other side of the curtain, reminding her of what, or who, she was arguing with. 'Maybe I was tired of waiting! Maybe I found someone like myself and didn't want to wait weeks for Maour to say "oh she wasn't right for all of this" and then go back to waiting!'

There was a world of frustration in those words, and something deeper, simpler. Heather only saw it because she knew it herself.

"What do you have to feel lonely about?" She said it without thinking.

'I shouldn't feel lonely, but somehow, I do.' A soft warble. 'Sorry for doing this. I just wanted someone aside from my family and Von to talk to, somebody who would see things the way I do.'

"Lucky you!" Heather responded sarcastically. That really rubbed her the wrong way. "At least you have family and friends around at all! And you thought some random prisoner would be exactly what you wanted?"

'After you took my manipulation in stride and turned it right back at me?' A soft, bitter laugh. 'I figured it had to be fate.'

She had done that. "But why does that mean anything?" She still felt vaguely violated, but it was hard to stay mad for some reason.

'It's who I am. Who my entire family is. We manipulate, scheme, plan. We're cynics, practical problem-solvers… who have bad pasts, sometimes. Sound familiar?'

She didn't know about problem-solving, but the rest of that did ring a bell. "Bad pasts?"

'Not me personally, but Mother and Father.' A growl. 'But you do not want this, so I don't know why I am saying anything at all except "sorry, please don't tell Maour".'

"Wait." Heather resisted the urge to hold up a hand, knowing she couldn't be seen. "I never said I don't want this, because I don't know what this is."

'Forget it.' Another, longer and deeper growl. 'This was a mistake.'

"Hey!" Heather stood and threw aside the curtain, startling the angry dragon on the other side. "You're just making another decision for me! That's what was wrong with this in the first place."

'Get back in there.' A dismissive wave of a black paw, something Heather might have found amusing in different circumstances. 'Someone might see.'

"Again, you have more to lose than I do. Way more, now." Heather crossed her arms, leaning against the side of the opening to pin the curtain open. "So tell me exactly what you did, and I will decide if I want it undone."

'No. I shouldn't have-'

"What..?" Maour turned a corner and ran into the grey-eyed Fury, almost falling over. Then he saw Heather glaring at the Fury.

No one spoke for a moment.

Maour put a hand to his forehead. "One rule," he muttered in what sounded like resigned frustration. "One rule, for both of you."

The grey-eyed dragon cringed and whined. Heather almost felt like doing the same, though she felt more guilt than embarrassment. Being in this position to start with had originally been her fault, and being caught right now definitely was.

'I was curious,' the dragon explained sheepishly. 'She's fine.'

"Yeah," Heather agreed, "I'm fine."

Maour's eyes widened… and then narrowed, focused on the Night Fury. "You didn't."

No response.

"You did." If Maour had been exasperated before, he was truly angry now. "And what exactly made you think that was a good idea?!"

'You were going too slow!' There was more than a spark of defiance in her voice. 'I knew how to be sure, and it worked!'

"And to do it, you basically…" An uncomfortable silence. "That was wrong, Einfari, so wrong. You forced yourself on someone who had no way of knowing what you were doing, without even the excuse of it being necessary. Slow or not, I was doing what the pack had decided, and it would have gotten to the same end if Heather was suitable and willing."

'I did not think of it like that. Forcing her into this… but I did.' The grey-eyed Night Fury- Einfari, he had called her- whined apologetically. 'I was going to break it, but you interrupted.'

"How, exactly, did you plan on doing that? Were you going to knock yourself out, or were you going to just knock her out?" Maour pointed at Heather. "Either way, that doesn't make this any better."

"Hey, this was partially my fault," Heather interrupted. "I was the one who pulled open the curtain… last time."

"And did she assault you then?" A groan. "Were you entirely aware of everything Toothless and I were trying to keep secret until you could handle it, and just messing with me all night?"

"No… well, yes." Now she knew what needed to be known. "But she didn't do this until a few minutes ago."

"A small mercy," Maour muttered. "At least I caught it before I sent her out to find the others."

'Sent me out? Out where?' Einfari perked up. 'I can still go,' she offered meekly.

"To go get Fishlegs and the twins- but no, you're not going anywhere now." Maour shook his head. "Was this your father's-"

'No!' She gave a defiant growl. 'It was my idea and I did not intend to keep the link unless she agreed to it. This was to be sure of her intentions before she got a chance to act!'

"I was doing that!" Maour shouted. He closed his eyes and dragged a hand down his face. "Einfari, did you really think I wasn't handling it right? Why not just talk to me?"

'I was impatient,' she admitted. 'I see that I was wrong to act on my own now. Can we just move on to what happens now?'

"Fine. You didn't actually break any pack rules, mostly because nobody thought this would ever be an issue," Maour supplied thoughtfully, "but this isn't good, either."

"Just have her break this link thing and we can all pretend this didn't happen," Heather interjected.

"I'm not going to lie, Heather." Maour crossed his arms. "And a lot of this is up to you, but that is not an option. Einfari is not getting out of answering for what she did. It would set a very dangerous precedent."

'Not if nobody knew…' Einfari slumped, not looking anyone in the eye. 'But you are right. I must answer for this.'

Heather's heart cracked a little at that. Einfari had just been a little impatient. Her intentions were apparently good. And now, she was probably going to be punished for…

"No." Heather made her mind up. "She's going to be in trouble for doing whatever this was without my consent?"

"And for doing it at all, but yes, that one's the more serious offense," Maour confirmed. "She basically attacked you."

"Well, I consented." Heather met Maour's eyes. It was a good thing she knew how to lie, though he already knew, or at least suspected otherwise.

'But you…' Einfari trailed off when Heather put a hand to her mouth. 'I do not speak with my mouth, Heather.'

"I consented," Heather said, subtly kicking Einfari's foot to get her to play along.

'Oh, right. She did,' Einfari agreed, kicking Heather back, her paw hitting much harder. Heather held in a wince. That was probably going to leave a mark.

"But...," Maour objected. "You just told me-"

"What harm does it do?" She really wasn't sure. "I say yes to whatever this is now. Surely you can let her off with only a warning?"

"You don't even know what you're agreeing to." A sigh. "But if you actually said yes, she wouldn't even need a warning. That doesn't save her from answering for going against the pack."

"And will that be nearly as bad as the other?"  
'Explaining to my family what I did will be worse than explaining to the pack,' Einfari put in worriedly. 'Much worse. But not as bad if you let me get away with hurting you.'

"We will settle any fault there between us," Heather decided. "Once I understand exactly what you did to me."

"She put something of herself in your mind," Maour said coldly. "You have no privacy, now, and neither does she."

'For someone who once referred to it as "the best thing that has ever happened to me", you are describing it quite harshly,' Einfari complained.

Maour reddened. "I did say that, but things were different. Neither of us knew what it would do, and we trusted each other."

'So? It is the same link no matter the circumstances.' Einfari shrugged her wings. 'I can explain it to Heather. You figure out how to spin this so that I am not punished too harshly for it.'

"No." Maour shook his head. "I'm going straight to the rest of the pack, and I'm telling them exactly what happened…"

Heather cast Maour a glare.

"Except that I will imply you somehow got her consent first," Maour finished with a sigh. "You get to come up with a good story for that."

'We will think of something,' Einfari purred. 'And I will get my family to accept her… somehow.'

"Good luck." Maour sounded deadly serious. "You'll need it, I think. Any plan for what happens if you can't?"

'Why plan for failure?' A shiver. 'I will not be in a position to do anything if I fail to get them to accept this, anyway, so there is no point in planning. You'll have to break the link and get Heather off this island before my brother or father kill her.'

Heather felt the blood drain from her face at that matter-of-fact remark. "Okay, now I _really_ need to be brought up to speed."

"Here's the short of it," Maour sighed. "We sometimes bring humans into the pack, if they match a willing Fury, after an _extensive and careful_ screening process." He emphasized those words as if to drive in what they had skipped. "The humans are vetted by the pack, and are offered a place here. If they accept, then they link with their friend, and are considered a part of that family."

"The pack…" Heather was putting it together, and what she was beginning to understand was worrying. "How many of them are there?"

"Dozens," Maour laughed sourly. "Einfari can fill you in. But you need them all to like you, and unlike with the others, none of them know you as anything but a threat."

'None of them knew you either, Maour,' Einfari snapped. 'You survived and prospered.'

"And I almost got killed by _your brother and father,_" Maour shot back. "I didn't have to convince them to let me into their family! Getting them to accept me on this_ island_ was hard enough!"

'But I have no choice, so that's what I'm going to do.' Einfari wound her tail around Heather's feet. 'What we will do.'

So she might die… but if she succeeded, she would definitely be allowed to stay here. There was more, but Heather kept that in the forefront of her mind. This was a way to get what she wanted. The rest could wait. Anything was better than what she had before setting foot on this island.

"We've got this." Heather tentatively put a hand on her…

What was Einfari? Her attacker, her savior, her friend? Hard to tell, honestly. This was all so messed up.

Just like the rest of her life. But she already had too many enemies, so for the moment she would choose to think of Einfari as an ally, at the very least.

**_Author's Note:_ So Heather decides to be fine with all of this… to hide from the Berserkers. Well, at least she has priorities, no matter how warped. She might have asked a bit more about what all of this means first, though… Talk about an underinformed decision.**


	4. Chapter 4

"Well?" Heather waved a hand in the direction of the rest of the dark cavern, directing Maour's attention. "Don't you have things to do?" If he was going to go tell a whole pack of Night Furies about Einfari and her linking, he might as well go now. It wasn't like they needed to be watched.

Maour stared at her incredulously. "Are you okay? You're taking all of this… really calmly."

"The way I see it, Maour, this is all low stakes compared to the rest of my life," Heather admitted. "Dragons don't bother me, and the worst thing I've suffered here is a headache. Why should I be bothered by any of this?"

'Practical,' Einfari purred.

Maour let a small smile slip. "I suppose I should have expected nothing less from a potential Nótt." He turned and walked away, disappearing into the darkness.

"I'm surprised he can stomach leaving us without supervision," Heather remarked.

'He is not one to control if there is no need, and he and Toothless need to figure out how to spin this in our favor.'

"He said he won't be doing that," Heather recalled.

A snort. 'He will anyway because he doesn't want to see you dead or me exiled.'

That felt like something she would think if she knew him. And noticing that similarity brought her right back to all of this.

She stood, facing Einfari. "Okay, first off, you need to tell me," and wasn't that strange, to be requesting a dragon explain itself, "exactly what you did, and why it's so terrible."

Einfari whined softly. 'I know. Basically, I built a link between us. I can see what you see, or hear what you hear, and so on, whenever I want. But you can do the same with me, and you can hear me talk, which is why I did it.'

See what she saw? "And I have no say in that?" She didn't have much to hide, at least from this dragon, but knowing her privacy was, as Maour said, nonexistent, was a shock.

'We can work out rules, but the link itself is not limited by them.' Einfari met her eyes. 'Maour and Toothless easily avoid conflicting over it, so it cannot be so hard to work out some common courtesy. And it goes both ways. You can do the same with my senses at any time.'

"Show me." She needed to be sure of all of this.

'There should be a small bundle of oddness in the back of your head,' Einfari began, still looking into Heather's eyes. 'Poke at it. I'm not sure how to get it to work, but that's where it is.'

Heather's attention was drawn to the oddly new feeling in the back of her head, the one she had been ignoring. She did as told, straining to do something as abstract as poking at a mental-

Her vision expanded, shifting to show her… herself. A little ragged, her eyes wide and unfocused, looking somewhat angry. It was not dark in the cavern with this viewpoint, though it was not light, and she had no trouble whatsoever in seeing every detail of herself.

She was seeing herself through Einfari's eyes, and presumably she could access other things…

But she didn't want to. She pulled out, returning to her own vision almost immediately, and making a conscious effort to not look so angry. "Sight, hearing, and..?"

'The other senses, smell, taste, and touch.' A quick snort. 'That's it. We can't read each other's minds, and the other side effects don't start kicking in until later.'

"Side effects?"

'You'll be able to see in the dark, go a lot longer without sleep, hear all dragons, and eventually be understood by any dragon you talk to,' Einfari listed.

That was quite the list of benefits. "Now tell me the downsides."

'There are none.'

She sounded serious. "There are always downsides."

Einfari whined. 'The downside is that you are in a lot of danger because I was impatient. There are no actual downsides to the link except a lack of privacy with one person.'

"You," Heather clarified.

'Me.' She whined. 'So, are you mad?'

"You don't strike me as the kind of person to be too worried about that," Heather observed. "It was necessary, in your mind, so you did it."

'Maybe if it was over I wouldn't care,' Einfari explained, 'but if we work this out, I would rather not be on bad terms with you.'

"Explain to me what we need to do," Heather requested. Hopefully, in the process she would be able to determine if all of this was worth it. It certainly seemed to be, but she did not know enough.

'Fine.' It seemed Einfari was not happy about the subject being changed before she got an answer. 'You want to stay here and so do I. The thing is, you're a human.'

Heather frowned.

'That's fine by me but your kind has done a lot of harm to my kind, my family especially. So we need to convince them of two things.'

"I can guess. That I'm not dangerous, and that I can stand being around dragons." That shouldn't be too hard.

'Close, but not quite. We need to convince them that you aren't dangerous to us, and that you are like us.' A soft warble. 'It's complicated. But we should do it soon, before they hear about this from Maour and Toothless. I'll never get a word in if they don't find out before the rest of the pack.'

"So how long do we have before they find out?" Something seemed odd about that. "Isn't Maour going to tell everyone right now?"

Einfari flinched, her eyes widening. 'Yes, he is. We have no time!' But she didn't move.

"Uh, Einfari?" Heather waved a hand in front of the dragon's face.

'We can't do anything until I know,' Einfari grumbled. 'Look, Heather. I think we could be friends, but I screwed all of that up. Can you please just tell me what you want me to do to fix it?'

"You didn't do anything really bad," Heather replied slowly, thinking about it. "But I still feel like I don't even know what's going on around here. I'm just going with the flow, because you and Maour know what is going on and don't want to throw me to the Berserkers, unlike everyone else I know." That was true, but she needed to downplay just how badly she wanted a place like this to hide out. It would not do to seem overeager.

'Then let me make you an offer.' Einfari stood on her hind legs. 'One not connected to any of the things you don't get. Forgive me and let me try again in actually earning your trust, and I'll help you.'

"With what?" Heather stepped up to face Einfari, looking slightly up.

'Killing whoever is in charge of those hunting you.' She spoke as if it was obvious. 'Clearly, they will not stop, from all you have said. Am I right?'

Heather thought of just how doggedly she had been pursued. It did speak of some personal vendetta, though she had never even seen the chief of the Berserkers, Dagur the Deranged. "Yes. He won't stop."

'So he needs to die.' A soft growl. Einfari put out a paw, resting it lightly on Heather's shoulder. 'I will lend you my wings, my fire, and my mind in that endeavor, whenever it occurs. With my help, it won't be hard. Just give me another chance.'

"That's a lot to offer." She wasn't sure why Einfari felt the need to go so far. "What you did wasn't that bad."

'Yes, it was.' Though she didn't seem to enjoy saying it, Einfari was insistent. 'I basically did what the Queen used to do, forcing herself into other people to get what she wanted. That's why Maour was so upset by that part, and why he called it an attack. He and Toothless are changing what the link means, and I just went back to what it was originally used for.'

"I get that part." She just didn't personally feel that attacked. But this wasn't really about how she felt, it was about how Einfari did. If she was guilty, she would act to make it right. And besides...

A safe place to hide for as long as needed, and the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself pledging to help her end those who were responsible for destroying her life? Those alone were worth consorting with dragons, worth having no privacy, worth all of this and more. She would make this deal even if she despised Einfari, which she did not. How could she despise one so much like herself?

"Done." She put her hand on top of Einfari's paw. "He'll never know what hit him."

A deep and threatening growl reverberated under Heather's hand, Einfari's entire body conveying her resolve. 'Agreed.'

Then Einfari shuffled back, fell back onto all fours, and began walking into the dark cavern. 'Come on, we have no time to waste.'

Heather jogged a few steps and caught up, following behind Einfari. Only the silhouette of her tail on the moss provided Heather with a vague indicator of what direction to go.

Einfari was talking the entire time, which made it even harder to concentrate, especially as what she was saying seemed important.

'There are four families. The Svarturs will not be an issue, and neither will the Eldurs. The Myrkurs will go with the rest of the pack. They love chaos like this.'

Heather stumbled, falling onto Einfari's tail, which immediately jerked out from under her, sending her to the mossy stone floor. "I can't see anything in here!"

'Sorry,' Einfari warbled apologetically, turning around. 'Put your paw on my neck. I'll walk a little slower.'

Heather did as told, feeling far less harried as they began moving again. "Four, you said, but that is three."

'You were paying attention,' Einfari purred. 'Yes. The real problem will be the Nótts. My family.'

Well, that was encouraging. "How do we make them not a problem?"

'Most of that is me explaining and hoping,' Einfari admitted. 'But there are a few things you could do to totally destroy our chances, so I can tell you what to avoid.'

"Hit me."

'What?'

"It's an expression. Maour never uses it?"

'I think that given his past, that would not be taken as an expression by those he lived with, so it makes sense he does not use it.' Einfari growled. 'Anyway. Do not touch anyone aside from me, and even then only when I ask you to. Do not put your paws where they cannot be seen. Do not run or creep. Move slowly and steadily.'

"That's really strict. Why-"

'Humans are dangerous and we are careful. We are the only family that does not host at least one. They need to get used to you before you do anything that could be taken as threatening in the slightest. Otherwise, you might get blasted out of existence.'

Had she told Maour this was lower stakes than normal? She would take that statement back now if she could. Her own life was not low stakes.

"Okay… how likely is this to work?" She needed to know if she should be preparing to run from homicidal Night Furies-

Yeah, she was doomed if that happened.

'About half and half?' Einfari warbled apologetically. 'The bulk of it will be on me. Just look harmless but smart, and you'll probably be fine.'

They reached the outside, where sunlight was just beginning to spill out from the horizon, and began to walk around the outside of the mountain.

'My family cavern section is closer from the inside, but we would have to walk right through the central cavern, so this is safer for the moment.' Einfari began to trot, and Heather followed, now able to see well enough to do so.

Eventually, though not before Heather was entirely out of breath, they reached another small cave entrance, only just big enough for Einfari to fit into.

'It widens on the inside,' Einfari remarked. 'You stay here. I'm going to go get them all out here.'

A few very nervous minutes of waiting followed. Heather didn't feel confident enough to mess with the ability she now apparently shared with Einfari to watch or listen, but she would have done it in a second if she had practice. As it was, she was worried she might get stuck watching from Einfari's eyes and be caught when the dragons came out to meet her.

Eventually, Einfari returned, looking nervous. She walked over to stand by Heather.

Einfari pulled Heather a little bit closer with her tail. 'Don't worry. They can be... aggressive... but they aren't mean. Just cautious, and a bit jaded. They're nice if they know you.'

That didn't reassure Heather much. She watched with apprehension as a group of Furies, all with different shades of grey eyes, filed out of the cavern entrance. She would have to ask Einfari about that later. It made sense for the children, but why would both parents happen to have grey eyes? That was odd.

As Heather watched, the Furies drew near. She could see that there were three adults, and... a small one. Very small, maybe a third of the size of the adults.

Einfari gestured to each in turn, from right to left. 'Nóttleiðtogi, my father.' She pointed at a large Fury with near-black eyes. 'Nóttskarpur, my mother.' She gestured to the second Fury, who was a bit thinner. 'Nóttreiði, my older brother.' That one snarled softly at Heather, and Einfari growled back at him for a moment. He had eyes that were dark-grey. Einfari walked forward and nuzzled the small Fury, who barked happily. 'And Nótthljóður, my baby sister.' She nudged Heather. "Everyone, this is Heather."

Heather waved, smiling a genuine smile at the little Fury. She seemed happy and full of energy, as opposed to the other more hostile members of the group. "Nice to meet you all."

Nóttskarpur purred slightly. She pointed her nose at Heather questioningly, but her eyes were amused. Whatever the question was, it certainly didn't amuse Einfari's father or brother. They both hissed at Heather, and then Einfari. Nóttskarpur swatted Nóttreiði's nose with her paw.

Heather made very sure to keep her hands in view and make no sudden moves. She could feel the danger in the air. What had Maour said? That Einfari's brother had tried to kill him? And her father, but the brother had been glaring at her the entire time, before he even knew what had happened. There was danger there.

These were the dragons that would be in charge of letting her stay, the host family? She did not feel good about that at all.

Einfari elaborated on what had just happened. 'My mother asked me why I was introducing them as if you could hear me. Then they all figured out we had already linked. My mother doesn't seem to mind that much, but my dad and brother aren't happy with either of us right now. My sister doesn't really know enough to care. She's only nine.'

The little Fury objected to that. She growled at Einfari, which might have been intimidating if she wasn't so small compared to everyone else.

Einfari snorted. 'What? It's true. You just want someone new to play with.' She laughed smugly as the little Fury deflated, apparently called out.

Heather tried not to lose hope. Sure, half of Einfari'a family already didn't like her, but at least some of them did. And they were smart, to figure out that she and Einfari were linked so quickly. In her experience, it was easier to gain the favor of smart people, if one really just wanted their approval. They tended to not hold as many unfair grudges and were slightly more likely to admit fault.

Einfari's father snorted. Einfari translated for Heather. 'My Father wants to know why you decided linking with me was a good idea.' There was a slight tremble in her voice that implied there was more Einfari hadn't repeated.

Heather tried to answer that as best she could, making up a fictional version of how it happened as she went, keeping the deception that it had been a mutual choice. "I didn't exactly force Einfari to, because that isn't even possible. She seemed so much like me, and I didn't really consider that she might need to get permission first. But we were friends before that, and we still are." Heather figured if she had already lost Nóttleiðtogi, she might as well be unapologetic about that. "And I don't regret it, even if we probably should have waited. Einfari really is like me, and I think we're going to be inseparable soon."

Was that too much? Not really. There was no such thing as too much when her life was on the line. If acting as if she and Einfari were fated to be close friends kept her alive, she would do it without hesitation for as long as needed.

Nóttleiðtogi growled, but his eyes softened, if only slightly. He seemed satisfied with that, if not with the situation. Then he said something else.

Einfari grinned as she translated. 'He says that you at least have a spine, though you should be careful with what you say.' Her smile faded. 'He wants to know about your past. Mind if I tell them? I'd think you'd rather not go through all of that again.'

Heather nodded. Einfari was right about that. She tried not to listen as Einfari told her story, and instead watched the adult Furies. As Einfari spoke, Nóttskarpur seemed to visibly soften. She had been uptight if amused at first, but Heather could see her genuinely relaxing.

At one point, as Einfari was detailing her capture and treatment on the way here, Nóttskarpur slowly walked over to Heather and nosed at her face. Heather remained still, remembering Einfari's warnings and wishing she knew what Nóttskarpur was doing.

Oh, wait, she probably still had bruises there from the Berserkers. That would be it, given where Einfari was in the story. A small gesture, but one that gave Heather a little hope. She didn't really want to be pitied, but it couldn't hurt.

The two male Furies listened impassively, though Nóttleiðtogi seemed to understand why this was important. Once Einfari was done, Nóttleiðtogi spoke once more.

Einfari translated as he did, not even waiting for him to finish, her voice light and incredulous. 'He says that he still doesn't trust you but he's willing to give you a chance-' That was as far as she got before Nóttreiði snarled loudly enough to make her flinch and stop talking.

Nóttreiði continued snarling, his claws literally carving furrows in the dirt at the edge of the cave. He ignored the disapproving growls of his mother and father. But he couldn't ignore his baby sister when she jumped on his back and started pulling on his ears. He seemed unable to stay mad while that was going on, and had to turn and deal with his annoyed passenger, which he did gently and not at all angrily.

Einfari laughed softly. 'Nóttreiði can never stay angry if Nótthljóður decides to stop him. It's usually the only thing that can calm him down. He isn't a bad person, he just has a short temper.' She said that last part loudly, and it was clearly directed at Nóttreiði.

Nóttreiði growled half-heartedly. He stopped when his little sister swatted him with her paw.

Einfari translated. 'He threatened to end you in about a dozen horrible ways if you even consider hurting or betraying any of us. That's his way of welcoming you to the family.' She growled at Nóttreiði. 'If you so much as scratch her I'll blast you.'

Nóttskarpur cuffed Nóttreiði again, this time a bit harder.

Einfari purred. 'And my mother is backing me up. You have nothing to fear from him. He'll warm up to you eventually, and once he does he'd rather die than watch you get hurt.' There was a sarcastic lilt to that last bit, one Heather assumed was aimed at Nóttreiði, who snorted dismissively.

"That sounds pretty unlikely," Heather remarked.

'Like I said, eventually. It's going to take time.' Einfari nuzzled Heather's hair. 'But the hard part is done. We've got the support of the Nótts.'

Heather sighed in relief. She wasn't sure how much of all of that was Einfari playing her part, and how much was genuine excitement, but it didn't really matter. It was all the same to everyone else, and if she couldn't tell, that meant Einfari was a good actor. But she had a question. "What will it mean when I'm accepted?" More specifically, would that be the last barrier to her officially being allowed to stay here indefinitely?

'The same as for the other humans here. You'll be a member of the family of the Fury you link with, though not related to anyone. That's a bit different, but it doesn't change anything. You'll count as a member of the pack, and when we have to vote on things, you get to participate in our debate, which is how my family decides how to vote. You'll be one of us.'

Heather liked that. "It's like that for all the other humans here?" She felt like there was something Einfari was leaving out. A way her tone had changed slightly at one point.

Einfari nodded. 'All but Maour. He was a special case. Svarturkló and Svarturkappi convinced Svarturskuggi and Svartuvon that adopting him into their family entirely was a good idea. So Maour is actually related by adoption to them. He's Svarturkló and Svarturskuggi's son, and Svartukappi and Svarturvon's brother by adoption. It doesn't change anything officially, but they felt it was appropriate, given his past.'

Given his past… maybe it was appropriate, at that.

'My father is calling me,' Einfari said abruptly. 'Wait here.'

After that, Heather spent a few minutes waiting around as Einfari spoke with her parents at length. That reminded her that she was still very much an outsider. From the pauses and discrepancies in the previous conversation, she knew that Einfari was not translating close to everything.

What Heather had heard was the tip of a dangerous, possibly fatal iceberg, one Einfari seemed to be handling. It was disconcerting, especially given she would be living with the iceberg if this all worked out.

A few minutes later, Einfari led her into the caves, the other Nótts following behind. She could almost feel two sets of piercing grey eyes burning into her back. To make matters more concerning, in here, she was still totally blind. She mentioned that, and Einfari stopped on the spot.

'Why didn't I think of that before?' Einfari sounded annoyed with herself. 'Heather, get on my back.' That was a clear request, so Heather did as told.

'Now, access my sight.'

Heather quickly located the new addition to her mind and did as Einfari said. She gasped at being able to see the entire cave as if it was day, looking through Einfari's eyes. "This is much better."

Einfari laughed as she resumed their walk towards the center of the mountain unhindered by Heather's lack of night vision. 'I thought so. And if you just access my senses of sight, hearing, and smell a little and keep them open, over time they'll... transfer over... to a degree, apparently. But that takes months of having them always open. For now, this is good.' She stopped at an opening to a large mostly vertical cave. 'Here we are.' She flew up to a ledge, sitting off to the side. The rest of the Nótt family sat a bit apart from them. It seemed Einfari, carrying Heather, was not something they wanted to get too close to right now.

Heather took in the view through Einfari's eyes. There were about twenty Night Furies in the cave, of four different families, if she went by eye color. There were two young-adult Vikings complete with helmets standing among the yellow-eyed Furies, and one large Viking with the red-eyed Furies. All three of them looked worn out, though not too tired. Heather also saw Maour with the green-eyed Furies. He seemed nervous.

"Who are the other humans?" She had caught on to the fact that there would be others who had taken this path before her, but this was the first time she was seeing them.

'The two together are the twins, and the large one is Fishlegs. They must have just gotten back, though I don't know why they were off-schedule in the first place.'

They both watched as Maour and Toothless flew to the smooth-topped stalagmite jutting up in the center of the cave. Maour waved at them, almost urgently. Einfari took off and landed on the pillar next to Toothless.

'No,' Einfari rumbled quietly when Heather shifted to get down and stand, 'stay up there. It can only help the appearance we need to create.'

So, Heather remained astride Einfari, still because moving made her dizzy, unable to affect her current vision despite moving her head.

Maour spoke, probably for Heather's benefit. "We need to go over two things tonight. Both are urgent, and both were unexpected. I figured we should start with the..." He trailed off. "Well, I guess the phrase would be 'new human in the room'. I really need to modify a lot of my old sayings, none of them fit now. Saying 'the dragon in the room' when dragons are normally in the majority just doesn't work."

Toothless nudged him, and he got back on track. "Anyway, that. Heather here has been on the island for a few days," he quickly turned to face Fishlegs "which is why you don't know who she is. We had decided to speed up the whole process because of that, but..." He frowned and paused for a moment. "Einfari apparently decided even that wasn't quick enough. She and Heather reached something of an understanding behind my back."

So, he would hold up the small lie. Good. She didn't want to have to contradict him in front of so many possibly hostile dragons.

There was something of an uproar over that, although not as much as Heather had expected. She listened carefully as Maour continued.

"So, now we're here. I think Heather is trustworthy, though I haven't had much time to get to know her. I'll let Einfari speak for her, and then you can ask any questions of either of them you might have." He and Toothless stepped back, and Einfari stepped forward.

Heather listened as Einfari told a somewhat modified version of how they had met, and why she thought Heather was trustworthy, along with Heather's past. Basically, the same stuff she had just told the Nótts, though phrased very differently, painting herself as impatient to be sure either way, not manipulative.

After that, the Furies were supposed to ask questions. Heather was surprised when the large Viking spoke first, in a surprisingly non-deep voice. He must have been younger than she thought. Which made him huge, even by Viking standards. A Viking of around twenty, from what she could tell, that big already.

"Uh, the Eldurs have picked me to speak, so that Nótteinfari doesn't have to translate. We want to know why Dagur was after you. Do you have any idea whatsoever? Any interactions with Berserkers that might have made them mad at you before they started hunting you?"

Heather spoke bitterly. "I wish I knew. But no, I had never even spoken to a Berserker that I know of. I had no enemies, except the Outcasts, and I don't think they were involved."

Fishlegs held his hands up in a placating gesture. "Hey, we believe you. Dagur is called 'the Deranged' for a reason. I know that from personal experience. We just thought it was odd he has apparently fixated on a random girl he's never even met." He apparently heard something from his group. "Okay, we don't have any more questions. I mean, they let the twins in, so the bar isn't too high. You just have to like dragons and be friends with a Night Fury."

One of the twins objected from their ledge. "Hey, don't make me come down there. We had to go through the coolest trials ever to get in here! There was definitely a bar, and it was held between two flying dragons, while we walked across it. And that was just one of the trials."

The other twin joined in. "Yeah, that bar was at least a thousand feet up. So definitely a high bar."

Fishlegs groaned. "It was a figure of speech. I wasn't talking about an actual bar. And I'm pretty sure Blast and Boom made up those tests on the spot."

The male twin spoke. "Eh, doesn't matter. Still awesome. Anyway, a question for the woman in the middle of the cave. What was your name again?"

Before Heather could answer, the other twin socked her brother, almost knocking him off the ledge. "Ignore him, he's an idiot. So, you're cool with all of this? Becoming one of us, living with dragons, eating fish three times a day..." She shuddered dramatically and was then slapped by one of the yellow-eyed Furies. "I'm kidding. It's not all fish all the time. But still, it's a big adjustment."

Heather wasn't sure if this was a question from the family or if the girl was speaking for herself. But it was a good one. "It'll take some adjusting, but I think I won't mind. I like fish anyway, and I'm definitely not a picky eater." That was an understatement. Living a year on the run had driven any squeamishness about food straight out of her. She had been forced to subsist on rotten bread for a few weeks at one point because it was all she could afford.

The female twin nodded. "Cool. Well, that's pretty much it. Oh, and you do realize that if you live here, you are agreeing to be pranked by the Thorston-Myrkur Quintet at least once a month?"

Maour interrupted. "No, she isn't. You can try, but you know the rules. No destruction you aren't willing and able to fix, and you have to quit it if she asks." He seemed amused, though his words were serious. "And I'd watch it if I were you. You've already figured out that messing with the Nótts usually doesn't end well."

Both twins squirmed in embarrassment. The male spoke. "I thought we all agreed never to speak of that!"

Maour smiled. "Just thought you might need a reminder."

Heather whispered to Einfari. "What happened?"

Einfari purred loudly. 'I'll tell you later. It was great. They never pranked us again after that little encounter.'

The female twin had returned to her position as the voice of the Myrkur family. "Oh, Heather. One more thing. You should know, we are the rider of the Night Fury."

Heather squinted at her. "Yes, I thought as much." She gestured to the dragons on all sides. "Why does it matter?"

Maour took over. "I've got this Ruffnut. Heather, she means that we are all", he pointed at himself, Fishlegs, and the twins, "the same figure. We make sure to never be seen together or at the same time, and as a result..."

Now she understood. "The rumors can't agree on anything about you, and they all assume there's only one rider. Clever. Yeah, I can work with that. I'll keep that illusion going." An easy promise to make when she had no intention of leaving this island for a long while.

Maour smiled. "Good. The Svarturs don't have any questions. We welcome anyone who can accept our ways, and we definitely welcome the first human to join the Nótt Furies. We weren't sure if that would ever happen." There was an odd edge to his voice, as if there was more that would be said later.

Heather smiled, dismissing the undercurrent. "Well, now you know." She watched as the families discussed her, and as three Furies, one from every family except the Svarturs, flew out and faced her and Einfari. Einfari translated for her.

The Fury from the Myrkurs spoke first. 'We vote yes. There doesn't seem to be any reason to object.'

Then spoke Nóttleiðtogi, who was one of the three Furies. 'We have no objections. We will give Heather a chance to earn our trust. We vote yes.' The dragon visibly wilted as he said that. Yeah, there was definitely more going on here.

A large red-eyed Fury spoke last. 'We have no objections, provided Heather has been truthful and really does not know why Dagur is after her. We vote yes.'

Maour spoke. "So now it is up to you, Heather. Do you accept the offer? Knowing that your new loyalty will be to the pack, and that betraying it is, I'm obligated to inform you, severely punishable?" He sounded entirely serious.

Heather smiled as Einfari looked back at her. "Yes, I do. I'm happy to have somewhere to belong again. It's been far too long." She would put it in a way to seem as content as possible, regardless of whether or not she felt that whole-heartedly enthusiastic about all of this. This was in front of everyone, and she needed to make a good impression.

After a moment, Einfari flew Heather back to the Nótt Furies. Back to the family that had taken her in. Or at least, was willing to try. They set down a little way from Nóttskarpur, who purred reassuringly at Einfari. 'Don't worry daughter, I'm sure your trust in your friend is well founded.' Heather smiled as Einfari relayed that comment.

A few moments later, Heather watched one of the green-eyed Furies fly over, and land on their ledge. She wasn't sure which one this was. She watched as the Svartur Fury and Nóttskarpur had what looked like a friendly conversation, and the Svartur Fury left. She didn't know what had just happened, but Nóttskarpur was eyeing her oddly now.

* * *

Einfari wanted to laugh. She had heard what Svarturkló and Nóttskarpur had said, and she was sure Svarturkló had just planted a few ideas in her mother's head. She would have to thank Svarturkló for that later, privately. Much less awkward and pushy than if she had done it herself.

Heather had given her another chance. The pack had accepted her. The final and most worrying sticking point was staring stonily out at the cave, his eyes not really seeing. Her father.

He had put up the front everyone outside the family saw and was clearly trying to follow Maour's advice, but this wasn't going to go well. Hopefully, Maour could do the majority of calming Nóttleiðtogi down before he got her alone. Einfari was dreading the talk he had promised her earlier, even as he was fighting his own issues to give a fair chance to Heather.

That was one small comfort. He trusted that Einfari's judgment was sound, at least as far as she could see. Otherwise, Heather would not still be standing here among them.

Her new friend had no idea how close things had gotten to getting violent during that meeting. Einfari knew that once Heather could hear everyone, there would be no way to shelter her, but for now, she would keep all of the vitriol and dangerously violent comments to herself. That didn't need to be relayed.


	5. Chapter 5

Heather and the rest of the Nótt family watched as Maour and Toothless stepped forward again, addressing the assembled pack from their place in the center of the vertical cavern. Maour still spoke, presumably for her benefit, as she was the only one who couldn't hear Toothless at the moment.

"And now for the other part of tonight. The news we received from Johann. I'm afraid not much of it is good, although Gobber has slightly better developments to report, along with one horrific one." He inhaled. "First off, Stoick the Vast is dead, and Snotlout is now Chief of Berk. And of course, we know that means Astrid is in charge in all but name." He seemed to be trying to control himself now, to keep his voice neutral. Heather had a feeling the death of Stoick, regardless of the fact that the man hated him, was affecting Maour more than he let on. She saw Toothless wrap his tail around Maour from where they stood, and Maour seemed to take strength from that.

He continued. "The official story is that he died in his sleep."

Heather grimaced. For a Viking, that was the worst way to go. Without battle, without glory, no warrior's death.

Maour wasn't done. "But Gobber says otherwise. He says it happened the night after Stoick forbade Astrid from spending any more resources on dragon hunting. He apparently saw no point in seeking dragons out when none have gone near Berk in years." Maour took a deep breath. "Gobber was fairly sure Astrid killed Stoick in his sleep, with a dagger to the heart. So apparently he checked before they sent Stoick's body off in his funeral ship. It wasn't even a dagger to the heart. She stabbed him in the back, multiple times according to the wounds. Snotlout was the one who reported that Stoick had died in his sleep, so he must know the truth too. Not that that really surprises me."

Maour bowed his head. But he didn't stop. "Gobber says he told no one. But the Ingermans and the twins' mother apparently took that as the last straw. They begged Johann to take them to wherever their children were, and Johann agreed. So, we have three family of pack members on the island of Mahelmetan right now. We need to figure out what we'll do with them. Gobber also says that in one of Snotlout's first acts as chief, the nest hunts are being expanded. Astrid has full control now, and we know she won't stop. Gobber doesn't know where they're going first, but he's going to try to find out."

'That's why they were late, I guess,' Einfari whispered to Heather. 'They must have run into their parents when getting the news from Johann.'

There was a nervous shuffling of feet among the Furies. That really wasn't good. Astrid might go the exact opposite direction from their island, but they didn't know. It was possible she would sail straight towards them in blind luck. The limit to her travels that had made her irrelevant the last few years no longer applied.

Maour cleared his throat, to get everyone's attention back. "So, we have a few issues. First, we need to know where Astrid's going. Gobber might know by now, but we won't get any information from him until Johann gets to Berk and back again, which won't be for six months. We don't have that much time, because by then Astrid could be here with months to spare. Second, we need to decide what to do with the three family members of the twins and Fishlegs, who are neutral towards dragons at the moment."

Gobber again… there was something there. They were talking as if he was their informant… and that would actually fit what Heather had seen of him, though he was a very good actor if so.

Fishlegs spoke up. "I can give more information there. I've been writing letters, and I think after talking to me, my father and mother don't really hate dragons. I got the same vibe from the twins' mother. They've seen Maour's book, and we've been working on them for a few years by letter, slowly but surely."

Maour continued. "Thanks, Fishlegs. And we have one more problem. Dagur is going to find out Heather was 'captured' by one man, on this island. I've told his men that I'd be in touch. I think I need to go stop Dagur from looking for Heather, and we definitely need him to think I was just stopping here, a worthless uninhabited island only good for fresh water."

After a moment, Maour responded to what for Heather was an unheard question. "The Berkians and Berserkers are technically allies, however unstable their leadership might be. Astrid will leap on any mention of the dragon rider. So if Dagur draws a connection between a stranger hiding in the woods and another stranger with reason to hide, and I haven't contacted him, he might just tell Astrid where I was last seen. Here. We need to get his mind off of this island, no matter the risk."

Heather knew what needed to be done, both for her own goals and to protect this island, and leaped at the chance, raising her voice. "Maour needs to go. But so do I. Dagur won't believe him if I'm not there." Which was true. Common knowledge was that the Berserker chief was paranoid. But it would also get her, and by extension Einfari, into striking distance of their target.

Maour stared at her from the pillar. "You really want to risk that? We don't know why he wants you. He might just want to kill you himself, for some insane reason."

Heather shrugged. "But his attention will be on me, not you, and by extension, not this island. I'm going."

Maour seemed to listen to something. After a few moments, he spoke. "We'll have more time to plan this stuff anyway. The Berserkers who captured you are still probably about two months away from Berserker island, assuming they headed straight there from where we left them."

One of the twins spoke. "Wait, why don't we just sink that boat? Then Dagur won't know Heather was captured. Problem solved!"

Maour grimaced. "Besides the fact that that means killing those Berserkers? It won't work long-term. Dagur will still search for Heather, and Heather is known by his armada to be in the area. So more and more Berserker boats will sail these waters. We can't rely on all of them to dismiss this island. Eventually, one would decide to search here, and we'd have to stop them. And so on, more and more chances for things to go wrong and destroy our secrecy. One of the things that makes this island so perfect for us is that it's isolated, and therefore no one really sails near it. Even the Berserker boat that started all of this was off-course, according to their maps. But if we make that ship disappear, they'll come looking for it."

There was silence for a few moments, at least on the levels Heather could hear. Then Maour spoke up, possibly in response to someone else. "We can figure all the details out later. For now, all we know is that Toothless, Einfari, Heather and I will probably be going to deal with Dagur in a month or so and that we need to contact Gobber. Berserker island is close to Berk, so I can do that after we deal with Dagur."

At that, the gathering seemed to be over. Furies drifted over to speak to each other, and some left the central cave entirely. Heather wasn't surprised when none of the riders she didn't really know stuck around. They were probably dead-tired. Maour, however, did land on their ledge to speak with them.

He and Toothless both smiled, a somewhat startling image. Maour spoke. "Heather, there are a few things you need to know. First, have you tried accessing Einfari's senses yet?" It seemed he was going to treat them as if the story they had given was true.

Heather laughed. "I am right now. It's the only way I can see anything in here." It was true, she was still seeing out of Einfari's eyes. They were standing right next to each other, so she really didn't feel that disoriented, as long as she didn't move her head. That felt really weird.

Maour nodded. "I should have guessed. Anyway, you should access hearing and smell just slightly, not enough to actually get anything, and hold them open. Do the same with sight whenever you're not using it."

It took a few seconds, but Heather figured out what he was talking about. She discovered that they stayed open like that once she stopped concentrating on it. "Done. For how long?"

"A couple of months, give or take?" Maour seemed entirely serious. "It kind of... pulls up those senses to get as close to Einfari's level as possible with a human nose, eyes, and ears. This is how you develop good enough eyesight to see in here, or with any amount of light. It also allows you to hear all dragons, and that part only takes a few days. There are a few other small perks, like being able to go for longer times without sleep. I'm not actually sure why that works. But this is how you get that."

Heather had to ask the obvious question. "What would holding open touch and taste do?"

Maour laughed. "The Eldurs wanted Fishlegs to try that. He did, but we're pretty sure they don't do anything. Maybe because our senses of touch and taste are already stronger. Fishlegs was terrified he'd develop a love of raw fish. Anyway, keep those open, try to get used to being nocturnal..." He trailed off and stood there silently for a moment before apparently remembering something. "Oh, and I need to get Einfari's measurements for a saddle. But that will have to be later. I'll find you guys, I have no idea what Toothless and I are going to be doing."

Toothless addressed the entire Nótt family before him, and Nóttreiði growled.

Heather wondered what Toothless had said. She looked questioningly at Einfari.

'Toothless congratulated our family on adding a human member and wished us well. Of course, Nóttreiði took it as an insult. He doesn't really like Toothless anyway. Probably because Toothless beat him in a fight after Nóttreiði attacked Maour.' Einfari was whispering now, probably so Nóttreiði didn't hear. 'He deserved it, and it wasn't a fight to the death, because we're too few in number to allow that kind of thing. Toothless humiliated him because Nóttreiði doesn't have much fighting experience. He still remembers that, even though Toothless seems to have forgotten about it.'

"Why did he threaten Maour?"

'Maour met Nótthljóður in the forest by accident. Nóttreiði was looking for an excuse. He hates humans, even though Maour was the first one he had ever seen.' That was said sheepishly

Heather was confused by that. "Why?" She assumed there was some reason for it.

'He just does. I think he needs to have some enemy he can direct his anger at. Humans are a good one because so many of them really are enemies. But he isn't a bad person. He probably dislikes Toothless more than Maour now, and that's just a little grudge.'

Heather could tell Einfari was trying to reassure her. She would take Einfari's word on that one for the moment, unable to judge for herself. She awkwardly climbed onto Einfari's back, and most of the Nótt family went back to their section of the caves. Nóttleiðtogi stayed behind, as did Maour and Toothless.

Now that Heather could see, she saw that the caves were fairly tall and roomy and that the Nótt section was much larger than it needed to be. She asked Einfari about that.

'All the families have this much extra room. For expansion, and new Furies. When we can get any.' Einfari sounded sad. 'Generally, parents will have a new egg every three to six years, but sometimes they can't for a long time. It seems pretty random. My Mother and Father say they don't need any more children to deal with right now, but I think they're just holding off until Nótthljóður turns twelve, so that they can fully devote their attention to a new hatchling. The Myrkur parents say they have enough infants to deal with, including Myrkursprenging, Myrkursprengja, Myrkurvængur, and Myrkureyðileggingu. The first three are young adults, and Myrkureyðileggingu is the oldest Fury here, but they all act like children. The Eldur parents laid an egg last year, and little Eldurmælikvarða, or Vartha as we call her, is almost one.'

"What about the Svarturs?"

Einfari sighed. 'I heard Svarturkló tell my Mother that she and Svarturskuggi have been trying for a while, but no luck so far. As I said, it sometimes just doesn't happen for a long time. No one knows why. That, along with how long it takes hatchlings to mature, is a big reason there are so few Night Furies. We just don't have enough kids. Apparently, Gronckles can have a dozen eggs a year, and their hatchlings can fend for themselves in nine months. I've never heard of a Night Fury laying more than two eggs at a time, which is really rare, and Night Furies aren't capable of being self-sufficient until age twelve, and aren't really considered full adults until around age thirty.' She purred. 'The trade-off is, no one here even knows how long we live. But it's a long time. Gronckles die of old age at somewhere around fifty. Myrkureyðileggingu is over two hundred years old, and he still has the energy of a young adult. And the maturity of one, but we assume that's just how he is.'

Heather considered that. Something still didn't add up. "Why aren't there any old Furies in this pack?" Surely there would be if they lived that long.

Einfari whined softly. 'Our pack hasn't been around for very long. In a few days, ask my Mother. She and my Father were there, and they know the story better than me. Let's just say we four families didn't group together under the greatest circumstances.'

Heather didn't press further. Between that and the hints Einfari had dropped about the troubled pasts of her parents, she could tell there was quite a lot of sad history she didn't know. She actually wasn't sure she wanted to know about the history of the pack. It didn't really matter now. But she should probably learn about the people who had taken her in despite not trusting humans and not knowing her personally. It was only fair. They were burdened with her story, she would learn theirs. But that had to wait. She didn't want to force Einfari to act as a translator for what would probably be a personal discussion with the mother.

Einfari stopped by a side cavern. She seemed troubled. 'I should have asked Maour how he handled sleeping arrangements. It can get cold, at least for humans. I don't know what the other riders do to deal with that.' She pointed towards the small side-cavern she had stopped at. 'I sleep in the same cave as Nótthljóður, to make sure she doesn't get cold. Furies don't fully develop the thick scales and internal heating to be entirely self-heated until about age twelve, so keeping young ones warm is important.'

Heather lowered her voice. "How dangerous would it be for me to want to sleep here?" She was very hesitant about the idea, because if they all saw her as potentially dangerous, getting close to the kid when they were vulnerable might be a fatal mistake.

'I'm not sure,' Einfari hissed back. 'But I think the other linked pairs share caverns for warmth, so it would be strange for us not to. Just be careful, and maybe put your back to Nótthljóður, so that you cannot possibly be seen as positioned to hurt her.'

They entered the side-cavern, and Heather saw that it was fairly small, which she supposed was why it had been picked. Easier to conserve body heat. Nótthljóður was already there, fast asleep. And, just as Einfari had said, she was shivering slightly.

"Wow. You guys really aren't good with the cold as kids." It was actually a bit worrying. It was barely chilly in here. Most reptiles were bad with the cold, but she had always assumed dragons, who could breathe fire, probably weren't.

Einfari nodded as she settled down, curling around her little sister. 'It lessens with age. New hatchlings can literally freeze to death if they aren't kept warm at all times. Fledglings don't really have a problem unless they're asleep. Then they get cold just like hatchlings, and they still get cold easily when awake. By age twelve they start developing their internal fire, the thing that lets us breathe fire. That pretty much fixes the problem. After that, we're fully self-sustained, and it takes a ridiculous amount of cold to slow us down.'

Heather took in the implications of that. "So basically, parents can't leave their kids alone at all for the first three years, and after that, they need to constantly be on alert for another nine?"

Einfari purred. 'Exactly. Even eggs need to be kept so warm that doing this', she indicated how she was curled up around her sister, sharing body heat, 'is basically mandatory at all times. It's also why Furies have such strong protective instincts and family bonds. They have to keep their children alive for the first three years, never leaving them alone. That much close contact creates unbreakable bonds, especially at that age. Older children always help, as much as they can. So the bigger the family, the easier it is on parents to raise new children, though the first three years are always mostly on them.' Einfari's eyes were drifting closed now. 'The parents take turns warming the egg and new hatchling, while the other one fishes and exercises. The other children bring fish whenever they can. It's a group effort.' Her eyes were shut now.

Heather considered that, now using her own eyes, just barely able to make out Einfari's silhouette. She remembered having seen a space between Einfari's tail and head that left Nótthljóður exposed to the open air of the cave and made a decision. If she needed to make an impression...

Einfari opened her eyes as she felt Heather settling down next to her head. 'What are you doing?' She sounded curious now.

Heather smiled and gestured behind her. "Helping?" She leaned back, her back forming a part of the now complete insulative circle around the little Fury. It wasn't the most comfortable backrest ever, a small, occasionally shifting dragon, but that wasn't the point, and she would manage.

Einfari laughed softly. 'Yes, you are. Thank you.'

* * *

Nóttleiðtogi watched as his son, daughters, and mate flew off, back to their own caverns. His eyes were worried. Not angry, just scared.

What worried Maour about that was that they were still in public, and Toothless was right here. For Nóttleiðtogi to be showing true fear here, now, he must be almost beside himself.

Nóttleiðtogi turned to stare at Maour. 'You did not know.' Pleading, almost, for his hard-won trust in Maour to be upheld.

"No." Maour denied it vehemently. "I found out about half an hour before you, and came straight here after getting my brother." He was not insane enough to try and push Nóttleiðtogi with something like this. This could help the Nótt patriarch... or break him entirely. Or destroy all the progress they had made over the last few years. It was way too risky to be a ploy.

Toothless remained silent, watching Nóttleiðtogi suspiciously.

'I gave her a chance.' Nóttleiðtogi closed his eyes for a moment, looking old and tired. 'That was good, but it is not safe. Not safe at all.'

"Why did you?" That was what had really surprised Maour. He hadn't thought Nóttleiðtogi capable of something like that, given just how traumatized he was.

'I just... did. Einfari trusts her, and I trust Einfari to be careful in judging the ones she chooses to place her trust in.' Nóttleiðtogi shook his head. 'And her story is very similar to mine, in some ways. That helped me see a person instead of a danger. But none of that should have been enough… I don't know why.'

"And now?" Maour asked nervously.

'I try not to have a heart attack every time I turn a corner and see her in my home,' Nóttleiðtogi answered almost despairingly. 'I second-guess everything I see and hear, checking it for falsehood, and then second-guess that because my judgment is flawed here. I hold my son back while half wanting to let him kill just to rid myself of what I fear.'

Yikes. That didn't sound good at all. "Or maybe you could just have Nóttskarpur do that?" Nóttleiðtogi had done as much before, trusting his mate's judgment in these matters above his own.

'Oh, she will,' Nóttleiðtogi laughed sadly. 'I am speaking of the reactions I cannot help. Between my son and my mate, Heather will be under the most intense scrutiny imaginable, and nothing more. There is nothing I can add to that. I must simply try and survive the stress this causes me.'

"Good luck." Maour really did feel bad for Nóttleiðtogi. He was trying, and it still hurt. "Is there anything I can do?"

Nóttleiðtogi hesitated. 'I would ask you to speak to Heather and explain, but that is my own fear speaking. I will do that myself. Just, please do not change anything. I will still meet you for help.'

"Of course," Maour agreed. "Good luck."

He and Toothless watched as Nóttleiðtogi departed.

'I haven't seen him like that since that time on the mountaintop,' Toothless remarked. 'Is he like that when you two are alone?'

"I don't think I should say," Maour admitted. They kept all that happened there secret, for Nóttleiðtogi's peace of mind, and he never wanted to break that trust. Even if some of the things he had seen were far more embarrassing than controlled fear, revealing that Nóttleiðtogi sometimes acted like that during their sessions was still a breach of trust.

'Sorry, I know that.' Toothless abruptly turned around. 'And no matter how quiet you are, Boom, I still hear you coming.'

"Can't blame her for trying," Ruffnut remarked, swinging down and out of the saddle as Blast and Berg landed beside her and Boom. "So, what do we do about the parent issue?"

"We can't leave them there without some sort of answer," Fishlegs agreed, looking nervous. "I don't want to know what my mom might do if she doesn't hear from me soon."

"So," Maour began, "how bad is it really?"

Fishlegs sighed, looking down. "I don't know. She was too… emotional… to really tell."

"Yeah, and our mom is good with whatever," Tuffnut continued. "Fishlegs' family is going to be an issue. I half expected her to drag him back to wherever they're staying to save him!"

"Well, to try, anyway," Ruffnut corrected with a smirk. "He's a bit heavy to drag, even more than before."

"Hey, it's muscle," Fishlegs objected.

"Sure, sure," Tuffnut remarked sarcastically. "Berg has been getting bulky, but that's from carrying you."

Fishlegs frowned, frustrated. "It _is_."

'He's serious,' Berg commented. 'It is muscle.'

'Sure, you would say that,' Boom argued.

'Fishlegs, show them,' Berg growled. 'Don't let them walk all over you.'

Fishlegs stood a bit taller and reached out for Tuffnut.

Tuffnut stood still, grinning maniacally. "Show us-"

Fishlegs grabbed Tuffnut's tunic, his large hand getting a grip, and lifted Tuffnut off the floor, stopping once the twin was about a foot off the ground… and holding him there.

Maour felt his jaw drop a little. Sure, he had seen plenty of Vikings do far more impressive things… but this was Fishlegs. He had never really cared about physical strength, though he definitely had the build for it, unlike any of the other humans on this particular island.

"It wasn't fair that Berg had to bulk up to carry me," Fishlegs explained quietly but firmly, still holding Tuffnut in the air, though his arm was beginning to shake. "So I started trying to cut down on my weight. But somewhere along the way, I started getting stronger instead, and we decided that was the better way to go."

Tuffnut began battering futilely at Fishlegs' arm, trying to get down. Fishlegs quickly dropped him, and he scrambled back, bumping into Blast.

'I mean, I noticed it on Berg,' Toothless muttered, 'but I assumed it was just from the carrying.'

"How long ago was that?" Maour asked skeptically.

"A few years ago?" Fishlegs guessed sheepishly. "It's been a while."

"And you didn't feel like _telling us?" _Ruffnut asked. "I showed everyone when I first redid my hair to look like Boom's ears!" Four braided nubs, the two on the outside much longer than the inner two. It looked a little strange, but not so much that it was out of the ordinary for one of the twins… though she had never changed it back, and seemed to consider it her normal hairstyle now.

"There was nothing to show!" Fishlegs explained. "You really can't see the difference yet."

That was entirely true. Fishlegs looked just as… beefy, so to speak, as he had five years ago in dragon training. He was a bit taller, but otherwise just… larger. The twins hadn't changed much either, Ruffnut's hairstyle aside.

"Hidden danger," Tuffnut muttered wonderingly. "Remind me to figure out how to use that to our advantage later, Blast."

'A strong human to carry things, or lift things,' Blast warbled. 'We could use that…'

'He's not carrying things for either of you,' Berg growled.

"Okay, enough about Fishlegs," Maour intervened, wanting to stop a possible confrontation. Berg might be similar to Fishlegs, but they were not the same person. Berg could and would stand up to Blast or Boom, quietly holding his ground. It seemed he was rubbing off on Fishlegs too, given what had just happened.

It was a positive change, if one so subtle it had taken quite a while to see the results. Maour wondered if Toothless was rubbing off on him, too. If so, how would he know?

That was a thought for later. "Right now, I need to know what we're going to do with them."

'The parents? Ask them yourself,' Boom rumbled. 'You have to go talk to them anyway.'

"We were getting to that, Boom! Fishlegs' mom made him promise to have Maour meet them to explain a few things. Three days from now, the tavern that also has an inn on the second floor." Ruffnut delivered that information in a tone of total nonchalance, going so far as to lean on her brother in apparent boredom with her own words.

Maour rubbed his face with his hand, feeling immensely annoyed. "That would have been a good thing to lead with. We're going to have to leave…"

The day they made the promise was day zero. Then a night back, a day of sleep, and tonight…

"Tomorrow night," he concluded.

'We have to leave tomorrow?' Toothless asked, turning to glare at Ruffnut and Tuffnut. 'You should have told us this when you got back!'

Ruffnut shrugged impassively. "What's the big deal? We would have told you at some point. Also, we were a bit distracted by the new girl none of us knew existed."

"I'd be more distracted if she was anything but a Nótt," Tuffnut complained. "Why couldn't the Eldurs or Svarturs get the new girl?"

'If it was the Svarturs she would be too well-informed to have anything to do with you, and if it was the Eldurs she would be too busy learning to have time," Blast explained condescendingly, patting Tuffnut on the head with one of his wings. "It would need to be another Myrkur. So it's _your _job to find yourself a mate, not Maour's. And I do not see you looking.'

"Eventually, Blast," Tuffnut retorted, "I will see an amazing display of destruction that we did not create, and the one who is responsible will appear. There will be no searching involved. The only question is whether it is I or Ruffnut who gets lucky."

Ruffnut nodded solemnly. "He or she must be an equal. Ideally, they'd come in twins. Everything good does."

'Let's go tell mom and dad we're leaving tomorrow night,' Toothless interjected, tugging at Maour's gauntlet in his haste to be away. 'We may as well do that now.'

"No argument here," Maour agreed, hopping onto Toothless's back and letting his brother carry them away. "But I'm thinking you're more interested in escaping that conversation than in spreading the news."

'Definitely,' Toothless rumbled. 'I do not like thinking of yet another pair of troublemakers, let alone the troublemakers the twins could produce if they had mates. It is the stuff of nightmares.'

"Our island aflame," Maour remarked humorously.

'The caves covered in fish guts, so deep we have to wade,' Toothless added. 'The sky filled with fog colored yellow like a Myrkur's eyes…'

"Stop it, you'll give _me_ nightmares."

'Be glad this link does not let us share dreams, brother, because I've had that one at least twice,' Toothless remarked seriously. 'It only gets worse.'

"What, do you find out you've somehow ended up as Boom's mate?" Maour asked humorously.

'Yes, actually,' was the surprised admission. 'It's horrible. I'm stuck cleaning up after her and the rest of the Myrkurs forever.'

"Of all the routes that premise could have taken, you should be glad that's where your dreams go," Maour pointed out. "I can think of worse."

'Of course you can. Get your mind out of the outhouse,' Toothless laughed.

"I regret teaching you that expression."

'Good to know.' Toothless glanced back at his passenger. 'Why do they want to talk to you, anyway? What can you talk about that the twins and Fishlegs can't?'

It was an abrupt change of topic, but Maour was more than willing to change focus anyway. "That's a good question. We should have asked Fishlegs."

'We still could, but it doesn't seem necessary,' Toothless quickly decided. 'We can find out from the parents themselves.'

"Good enough," Maour agreed. "I think I already know anyway. The twins aren't good with keeping secrets, and Fishlegs doesn't like it, so I'm betting they just told their parents I'll explain everything… even though the same rules apply to me."

'Can you?'

"I can try, and if not… oh well?" He shrugged. "They can't exactly do much if they don't like what I say. Fishlegs and the twins were smart to say three days, and I'll be sure to imply that I was already in the area on other business. There's no way to track us back here."

'It's still a long trip, even if we are only a full night's flight from there,' Toothless agreed. 'Speaking of which, do we leave at dusk tomorrow night, or do we have some time beforehand?'

"It's a tavern, so I should probably show up when it's busy. We should leave a bit after midnight."

'Good. I don't want to mess with our normal routine for this.'

Maour was fine with that. He wasn't particularly looking forward to this meeting, but it was pretty much his job to deal with the issue anyway. At least it would be a one-time thing.

* * *

Einfari lay awake, thinking. She heard clicks, claws on the stone floor in the patches moss did not cover, and knew that she was being watched. It was either her mother or father.

Then another set of footsteps, duller and slower. Both, now. They probably thought all three of them asleep. She did not intend to listen in, but her ears would not turn themselves off, and she definitely wouldn't mind hearing what her father really thought.

'Courage,' her mother said to her father. 'You will survive.'

'I always do, it seems.' Her father rumbled sadly. 'It is my children and you I worry for.'

'Then take heart in the fact that we are dangerous and forewarned. You taught them well.'

'All but Nóttreiði.'

'That was necessary. He showed signs of anger issues so early on. You planned for the future. It saved a life at least once.'

'Maour. He pities me.'

'He sees that this is not you, and wants to help. That is not pity.' A slight undertone of worry.

'I know.' A heavy sigh. 'How do I do this?'

'Take it one day at a time. Get to know her, as you did Maour.' A questioning warble. 'If it was him here, now, would you be so worried?'

'Of course not. I know him, and trust him more than any other human in the world.' That was admitted readily. 'He calls me Togi. That alone is more trust than I ever thought I could give a human.'

Einfari had to stop from barking in surprise at that little revelation. Since when?!

'So let Heather earn the same trust if she can,' was Nóttskarpur's pragmatic reply. 'I trust that Einfari was careful, and you trust _me._ As long as I am watching, you can act as if she is confirmed safe. It is safe for you to try and trust for the time being. If she slips, she will not live long enough to regret it." All said matter-of-factly.

'I trust Einfari's judgment to some extent too, which is why I am not going to punish her for this. Just lecture her on doing things that affect all of us without asking any of us about it.'

That was a huge relief. Now Einfari was glad she had listened in.

'You are doing better, anyway, to let this happen at all.' Nóttskarpur purred.

'Blame it on madness, for I still do not know how I managed to say yes at the moment,' her father grumbled. 'I am trying not to regret it now.'

'Even now, seeing her like this?' A soft laugh. 'I am not naive, but I can see no threat in this no matter how I try. Rather, I am almost worried Joy will cut her with her claws by accident like that.'

'I can see threat in that, manipulation to have us lower our guard.' A sigh. 'But I wish I could not. You are cynical enough, my mate. Anything more is not healthy.'

'I'll take that as a compliment.' Another purr Einfari reluctantly identified as seductive. Now she really didn't want to be listening.

'One of us should stay here and watch, just in case,' her father objected half-heartedly.

'I can come back after,' her mother quickly replied, not missing a beat. 'You need to take your mind off of this.'

With that, they left, twin footsteps receding. Einfari tried to put that last bit out of her mind. She didn't need to hear that, but at least they had left when they did. It would be mortifying to hear anything more.

So she wasn't in trouble for her decision, just for not telling anyone… and they both believed the version of events she and Heather had put forward. That was okay, at least. As for Heather...

They would just have to work extra-hard with her father. That was a given. At least he could allow this at all. If it wasn't for Maour, none of this would ever be possible...

And Einfari had spent years now wondering what having a human friend would be like. Envying Toothless, Berg, Blast, and Boom. Now she could find out.

Heather was trustworthy. There was no reason for her not to be. Sure, she was manipulative, but that was more comforting than worrying, because Einfari understood that kind of person. In some ways, they were easier to predict, because all of their actions went to whatever they wanted. Heather, both by her own admission and by her actions, wanted safety, and knew she would find nothing safer than this. It almost seemed as if Heather did not really care to end Dagur and end the hunt, but Einfari knew better. Once safety was obtained and secure, Heather would turn to that next goal… because that was who they were.

But as long as Heather understood that once she was a Nótt, she would have allies, Einfari feared no betrayal. True allies were far too valuable to give up, especially when crossing said allies would be fatal. Allies who were feared across the islands and who had no other attachments or conflicting interests, even more so.

That was how she justified her trust, and it was not false reasoning… but she also trusted Heather because she wanted to trust. Just having a friend who was within the family would be new. Von was great, but there were things one did not allow to be known outside of the family, and as a result, Von did not know the other Nótts very well.

Having a friend who would see the true faces of her family was new indeed. Not a little sister, not a short-tempered older brother. Einfari would work as hard as needed to regain Heather's trust, a valuable thing she had so carelessly broken, even if Heather didn't really seem all that bothered by it.

_**Author's Note: **_**Lots of worldbuilding built into this chapter. More attentive readers might have noticed that I nerfed Night Furies quite significantly in this universe in regards to life-cycles and reproductive capabilities. That is intentional, a balancing of sorts (and also a built-in way to prevent certain things, such as a population explosion ala **_**Lightning and Death Itself**_**). Some of you may also be noticing over the whole of the series that the Night Furies are peculiarly ignorant about certain things, such as how long they live, and are oddly devoid of specific cultural peculiarities one might expect from a unique sapient species. This is actually intentional, a result of circumstance. We won't get a full reason for it for a long time, but know that it is intentional and will eventually be revealed.**


	6. Chapter 6

Of all the strange things Heather had seen and heard spoken of, this had to be one of the strangest, if only because it was actually happening to her.

Trapped in a dark cave, unable to see anything, with two Night Furies… and she was more bored than anything. She didn't know what time it was, but hopefully it was almost time for Einfari and her little sister to get up, because just sitting here in the dark, however comfortable, was getting old fast.

That's not to say she didn't have anything to think about. Quite the opposite. She was surrounded by dragons, literally leaning against one, and she was safer than she had ever been, at least from the Berserkers. Her hosts, on the other hand, might not be so safe.

But even then, they weren't mindless beasts. They were dangerous because they thought she might be dangerous. If she died here, it would be because she did something wrong, not because they wanted a snack.

For the moment, she had a place to stay, albeit one risky in different ways. A place so safe from outside danger it would take an armada to truly threaten it, and even then the dragons could just fly away and take her with them.

Flying…

Maour had flown with Toothless as they had no boats. There were a few other riders and it was probably safe to assume they also flew their dragons. If she and Einfari were going to keep up the appearance of a normal bonded pair, that probably meant flying was on the table.

She wasn't sure how to feel about that. It was undeniably practical, and necessary besides, but to leave the ground behind and totally trust someone else to keep her alive? She wasn't used to not having any say in something so important. Even now, with all of this, she had a say, if only because Einfari had accidentally given her leverage by assaulting her mentally and then realizing that was wrong.

Heather was startled from her lingering thoughts by a shift behind her. Small paws began kneading at her back, pushing out-

She jolted forward, escaping the small pricks of sharp claws before they tore her back to shreds. That had been close.

'Joy, careful,' Einfari murmured sleepily, stirring in turn, woken by her sister's movement. 'I have scales. Heather doesn't.'

A sad whine emanated from the darkness behind Heather.

'You're fine, right?' Heather felt a nudge on her arm.

"Yes, I'm fine." For some reason, this whole situation felt awkward. "Can we get out into the open? I can't see anything in here."

'Of course, sorry.' There was a distinct rustle, as if something big had moved, which it had. 'Come on. Heather, you should probably put a paw on me again.'

Right. She still didn't feel confident with seeing through Einfari's eyes. Heather did as told, and the three of them made their way through the dark caverns.

Eventually, they emerged out into the moonlight and the cold wind. It was a relief, to be able to see again.

'Seeing in the dark should begin to kick in soon,' Einfari warbled. 'Then you will be able to move around in there on your own.'

"That would be nice," Heather agreed absently. "Where did..?" She had forgotten the younger dragon's name.

'Nótthljóður?' Einfari shrugged. 'My mother is taking care of her. I guess you couldn't hear her… or see her.'

That was a little disconcerting. "So I totally missed a whole dragon on the way through?"

'Three, actually. My Father was there, and so was my brother.' Einfari warbled curiously. 'Does that bother you?'

"When some of them probably want me dead?" She would be honest. "A little.'

'Heather…' Einfari came closer, looking into her eyes. 'It sounds like there is more to this than that.'

"I have no control," she admitted. "After years of being totally responsible for staying alive and free, that feels wrong. I can't defend myself, leave, or even hear other people talk, and I might need to."

'And you can't trust us to keep you safe…' Einfari whined quietly. 'But you have to, because that's the only way this can work. You have to trust us somewhat. We are doing the same with you.'

"Are you?"

That elicited a growl. 'If we were not trying to trust you a little, you would have slept alone, cold, and under guard. You would be _kept_ in the dark for a few weeks while we scoured the island and the ocean around here to be sure you have no hidden allies. Then we would question you, thoroughly, for a very long time, while my father checked everything you said for truth and asked the same questions a hundred times over in slightly different ways, just to be sure. That would take months, and you would hate us by the end of it.'

Heather shivered. "That sounds horrible."

'It would be. But we have no intention of doing that.' Einfari nudged her gently. 'We are suspicious, but you will remain free, allowed to leave the caverns, and not interrogated. My Father insisted that we not harm you, physically or mentally, despite his own misgivings.'

"Mentally?" Horrible half-formed worries about what these dragons might be able to do with this link flashed through her mind. It was all supposed to be voluntary, but-

'Imprisonment wreaks havoc with the mind,' Einfari explained. 'My father says that sometimes. And for you, being in total darkness for weeks on end would probably be worse. That is what I meant.'

Okay. Horrible worries averted. That did still leave all of the normal worries. "Somehow, that doesn't make me feel that much better."

'Then nothing will.' Einfari walked off into the forest, forcing Heather to follow or be left behind. 'I can tell you as many times as I want that they are trying, except for my brother, but if you don't listen…'

"I am listening!" She caught up, following only slightly behind. Walking was still just as difficult in the dark forest. "But they want me dead, and I can't protect-"

Einfari whirled, pouncing and pinning Heather in a heartbeat, strangely twisting as she did for no apparent reason. 'That is _my_ job!' she snarled, continuing to speak while pinning Heather to the ground with her paws. 'This is a different world, Heather, and here it is my responsibility to keep you safe. Eventually, you won't need my protection here, but until then you need to trust that I _will_ protect you from anyone, including my own family.'

Heather tried to calm her frantically pounding heart, to no avail.

Einfari moved away, letting Heather up. 'And I am no threat to you either. Look.'

Heather followed Einfari's prompting gaze to the…

To the tail below her, the one that had cushioned her fall even as Einfari pounced, the reason she had twisted strangely. Einfari had gone out of her way to keep Heather from harm, even when making a point.

Even in what had felt like a breaking point, a moment of rage directed at Heather, Einfari had kept her from harm.

"You are…" How could she voice this? "You act like we really are friends."

Einfari winced. 'Because I want it to be the truth. Don't you?'

She wanted to be safe. Aside from that, if it didn't affect her safety…

"Yes." It had been far too long since she had an actual friend. Her last friend had been killed by the Berserkers right in front of her.

'So act like we are friends, like I am doing, and it will become the truth.' Einfari warbled brightly. 'It should not be so hard. Just fake it until it is no longer fake.'

That was a twisted way of looking at it. Heather felt a grin slide across her face. "That sounds like something I would say on a particularly bad day on the run."

'Is that a compliment?' Einfari stopped in front of a tree and began to rub the side of her head against the bark. 'Or an insult?'

"A compliment," Heather decided. "What are you doing?"

'Smoothing my scales,' Einfari warbled, switching to tend to the other side of her face. 'It helps loose scales come off to be replaced, and helps wake me up.'

A small scale, no larger than the palm of Heather's hand, flaked off and fell to the ground even as Einfari finished explaining. When she stepped away, Heather picked it up.

'Keep that.' She nudged at the scale in Heather's hand. 'We need to collect these.'

"Why?" Of all things, that seemed pointless.

'Have you seen Maour's armor?' Einfari sighed. 'He got lucky. Von had been collecting her scales for most of her life, and he still had to wait a while before he had enough for a full set of armor. The twins only have a helmet each, and Fishlegs little more than that.'

"So…"

'Once my family sheds enough, Maour will make you a helmet. You'll need it to play the part of the dragon rider. No one can see your face, and the helmet helps to make everyone seem like the same person if someone sees.'

"Why just your family? Surely it would be more effective for everyone to contribute?" She pocketed the scale.

'It is not just for efficiency, Heather.' Einfari cast her a solemn stare. 'It is a way of marking you as one of our family. Of saying that we care about your safety.'

Her mind went to the dragons who did not care so much for her safety at the moment. "It is?"

'It _will _be by the time we have enough to make it,' Einfari growled. 'You will have to work for their acceptance, and I will make sure it is safe for you to do so.'

She kept saying that, and Heather was truly starting to believe it… but she was still a little skeptical. "What will you do if your parents order you to stand aside?"

'Why would they?' Einfari cast her a confused look. 'They want me to be the last line of defense. If someone snaps without cause, I will stop them from doing something they will regret… or should regret but wouldn't, in my brother's case.'

That was a little comforting-

'And if we find out you are not what you seem, though that would be almost impossible given I smelled the truth on you, I would help them kill you,' Einfari finished neutrally. 'That's only if they conclude that you are not as you say you are.'

Checks and balances… all built on the assumption that she was what she claimed. Luckily, she was, but still… it was a scary dependency. "What if someone thinks they have proof I'm tricking all of you, but it's not really proof?"

'We would check it first, of course,' Einfari reassured her. 'We don't kill without being extremely sure.'

"That's reassuring, I guess." Now she had to ask. "Have you..?"

'Killed before?' Her voice was light. 'No, but I could if needed. I know how. Have you?'

Heather's mind went to the unfortunate Berserker guard. She had fought before, but that was the only time she knew for sure, without a doubt, that her enemy had died by her hand. "Yes."

'Human or dragon?' A questioning warble followed that inquiry.

Luckily, she could answer that one truthfully. "Human. A Berserker."

'After they started chasing you, I assume.' Einfari began walking again, leading Heather further into the forest, around the base of the mountain. 'Killing one of them would be far too simple an explanation for what you describe as a long, extensive hunt.'

"A few days ago," she clarified. "Right before Maour intervened on the beach."

'So there is no way that is it,' Einfari mused. 'Were you well known among humans?'

That was funny. "I was nobody. My parents were normal Vikings, and we fished for a living. There was nothing special about us, or me, and nobody even knew me outside of the village."

'And you say you escaped the Outcasts, another human pack,' Einfari continued. 'Is it possible they have a reason to want you back? Perhaps the Berserkers are working for them?'

"We did escape them… but Alvin got what he wanted. Besides, nobody works with the Outcasts. It's dishonorable."

'So one random pack of humans wants you… and there is no reason.' They walked out into a familiar clearing, the small garden. 'I think you eat this stuff?'

Heather took a look around, and frowned. "Not raw, usually. I don't have any way to cook this. Most of it needs to be prepared."

'Does scorched fish sound better? I've seen Maour eating fish after Toothless burns it,' Einfari offered.

"That's more edible than this at the moment. Where do you guys keep the fish?" Was there a storehouse hidden somewhere?

'Keep them?' A light laugh. 'We keep them in the ocean. Why would we store them? They would just rot.'

"So… I'll wait here?" She could wait. It wasn't like they were on any kind of schedule.

'Why not come with me? Riding isn't hard, even without a saddle.' Einfari huffed, shaking her head. 'That reminds me, we need to go find Maour at some point.''

"I'm not sure if I'm comfortable riding…" She couldn't get excited about the idea of being so helpless, her fate totally out of her hands.

'Because you want to keep yourself safe and don't trust me to do it.' Einfari glared at her. 'This again. Get on my back, or I'll grab you and carry you with my paws. Both work for me, though one is a lot scarier than the other, according to Fishlegs. Your choice, but we are fixing this now.'

"Fine." She clearly wasn't getting out of this, as her self-appointed protector seemed to be at the end of her patience. "I'll ride."

'Good. Get on.' Einfari crouched. 'You can put your arms around my neck, but don't squeeze too hard. I need to breathe to fly.'

Heather did as told, awkwardly climbing on. It felt vaguely strange to be riding a dragon, let alone one that could talk to her, but it wasn't as if she had just jumped on. And it was practical, which was the only reason she was taking the risk. Flying was something she was going to need to be able to do, and practice could only help.

'I am going to jump to get high enough to flap my wings,' Einfari warned. 'That is how we get into the air from places like this. Hold on. I can catch you once we're in the air, but you need to hold on long enough for me get high enough for that to work.'

Heather saw what Einfari was doing, making her feel less helpless with all of this, but she didn't object. "Got it."

Einfari leaped into the air, her wings flapping down powerfully, forcing them up, and then again, pulling them further and further from the ground.

Heather barely had the presence of mind to not choke Einfari, clutching as hard as she dared. This was so dangerous, a fall would kill her, and-

They level out, and suddenly, it was a smooth glide. It felt like they were not moving at all, though Heather could clearly see the trees moving past under them, like the waves beneath and around a ship at sea.

She did not fear falling off of a ship, though she was not the best swimmer, so why did she fear this? Well, a ship had railings, and a human captain, and was not so small and maneuverable…

'Not so bad, right?' Einfari chirped back at her. 'And if you fell, I could catch you long before it became a problem, even at this height. We really should go higher, but this is high enough for that.'

"Not yet." She was not so afraid, and it was not so bad to trust a dragon who flew as a way of life to keep her in the air… but… "Let me get used to this."

'Okay.' A moment of silence. 'But this is like standing still, for me. If we are to be effective together, this is just the beginning.'

"What will the end look like?" Ignoring her fear, she still could not imagine that. "Flying faster? Sharp turns?"

Einfari laughed, a deep rumbling sound. 'Funny you should ask. Look over to the right, above the ocean.'

There was nothing there. "I don't see anything."

'It's a full moon… oh, try looking up. They're pretty high.'

Heather slowly brought her gaze up, and up, and-

A silhouette, clearly visible. Night Fury and rider, a slim form above a sleek body.

As she watched, the form jumped _off_ of the dragon, flipping in the air, falling freely. The dragon folded up as if it had lost all control, plummeting beside him. They fell in tandem, doomed.

Doomed. "What are they doing?!"

'Giving you an example to follow,' Einfari quipped. 'Toothless can't fly without Maour. This is even more dangerous for them than it would be for us.'

The figures fell beside each other, moving closer and closer to the water. But then, just seconds before hitting, they somehow maneuvered together and rejoined, pulling out at the last possible moment. A distant roar of triumph could be heard, and they weren't done. The dragon spun, moving like a thrown ax through the air, head over tail, as if rolling forward. It looked entirely unnatural, dangerous, and insane, but neither dragon nor rider seemed to care, and they executed it perfectly, pulling out with the tail slapping the water, skimming it as they pulled up.

And it was a _they_, according to Einfari and the story Heather had been told. "They are…"

'One, at least in the air,' Einfari corrected her absently. 'Despite being grounded, Toothless is the best flier in the pack. Others are stronger, others are faster, but nobody will even try what he and Maour do every day. They push each other, improving long past when any sane dragon would say "good enough" and be satisfied.'

Was that admiration Heather heard? "Sounds like you like Toothless."

'Not in that way, but yes,' Einfari breezily corrected. 'Toothless is too straightforward for me. He is a great friend, but we would be miserable together as mates. I would fly rings around him and always get my way, and he would let me. That would not be good for either of us.'

So sure. "How does that work for your kind, anyway? Would he decide, or would you?"

'What do you mean by that? It would be a mutual decision. Are you saying it is not for your kind?'

"Sometimes, no." Her mind went to the arranged marriages that were common. "A lot of the time, it is the parents who decide between themselves."

Einfari barked in surprise. 'I would not like that. My parents are great, but they cannot know who would be best for me. I would know.'

"No argument there." She had not had parents long enough to get to that point, but even so, she agreed with Einfari. It should be her choice.

'So, still troubled by this?' Einfari asked out of the blue, as they flew over the beach and out towards open water.

"Honestly, no. Not after seeing… that." She pointed at the distant shapes that were now gliding calmly. "This is nothing compared to what they do."

'True. This is also nothing compared to what I do, normally.' Einfari glanced back at Heather. 'To fish, I need to swoop and grab after shooting into the water. Hold on. Actually, until we get a saddle, "hold on" is good advice in any situation.'

'Got it.' She didn't feel that worried. Maybe trusting Einfari to keep her safe wasn't so crazy.

* * *

'That's probably enough,' Toothless called back after pulling out of their newest trick, a forward flip. 'I need to be able to get to Mahelmetan without falling out of the sky in exhaustion.'

"Is the mighty Night Fury admitting he has limits?" Maour teased. "But yes, you're right. Let's get going."

The flight to Mahelmetan was a long one, and one that both Maour and Toothless knew far too well. Despite the construction of a rudimentary forge and garden, there were still a few things that could only be acquired from Viking civilization, and Mahelmetan was the best place for that. It was a hub of trade, and thus inured to foreigners, and close enough to fly to without stopping for rest. Maour could trade and get whatever was needed without attracting attention as just another face in the crowd.

By the time they actually reached Mahelmetan, the end of a long and mostly boring flight through the rest of the night and much of the following day, it was only an hour or so before dusk. Toothless set down in the small and scraggly patch of trees that was the closest thing the island had to a forest, looking around warily.

Maour made no noise whatsoever, knowing what Toothless was doing. A few moments passed in utter silence.

'Nothing nearby. No animals, no Vikings, no children messing around.' Toothless's voice was clipped and quick. 'Let's get me hidden.'

Over the years, the forest had become a bit less abandoned and empty, which was why neither of them felt like lingering in the open. A few close calls had made them wary.

Once Toothless was safely hidden in the usual spot, covered in a carpet of old pine needles while crouching in a conveniently-sized hollow, Maour left the forest, making his way to the village itself. As long as nobody saw where he was coming from, he would be entirely unremarkable, one foreigner among scores of them.

On that note… he tugged at his light red tunic, resisting the urge to scratch. "Never thought I'd say this, but my armor is more comfortable than normal clothing." Visits to civilization were the only times he wore something besides his armor for longer than it took to clean said armor.

'Given how much work we put into making it that way, I would hope so.' Toothless warbled curiously. 'Why not use the cloak?'

Maour thought about the black cloak that was fitted into the inside of his armor, folded and stored for such situations. "Because I'd look like a shady criminal trying to avoid attention. That's for emergencies."

'Like needing to get spare parts because my fin broke while traveling?'

"Exactly."

Maour nodded to Framja, the village blacksmith, as he passed her forge. She was too busy flattening a bent sword to even look up, so she didn't notice him.

The tavern that Ruffnut had mentioned was distinct if nothing else, and Maour already knew where in the village it was, so he had no trouble finding it. The building was almost lopsided, a two-story shack that made most of its money off of foreigners looking to spend a night somewhere besides their ship. The alcohol was cheap, but the rooms were expensive, apparently because it was one of the few inns around, and by far the closest to the docks.

The inside of the inn was mostly deserted at the moment. Looking around, Maour could only see a few people, most of whom seemed to be waiting for someone. It was not busy at all.

"Well, plenty of space at least." He sat down at a table in a corner and tried to look preoccupied. It was best nobody noticed him, and someone surveying the room was pretty obvious.

'Boring,' Toothless commented. 'Isn't this the place you saw someone thrown through a door a few months ago?'

"Yup. It'll get busy once the day's trading is over," Maour guessed. "Everyone is still working right now."

The stairs up to the second floor were visible from where he sat, as was the door. He would know, without obviously watching, if anyone entered the tavern from either direction.

'What are the odds this is a trap?' Toothless asked after a few minutes of silence. 'For you specifically.'

"It's not impossible, but I'd say it's unlikely," Maour responded quietly. "Very unlikely. The parents have nothing to gain, and would risk their own children in the process. If Astrid got our home's location out of me, she would attack, and the twins and Fishlegs would be a part of that fight."

'She would not get it from you, though, because I would save you first,' Toothless growled dangerously. 'You know that.'

"I know you would try," Maour corrected. "But what if they manage to take me captive and sail away with me?" He shuddered at the thought. "You couldn't swim, but I would sooner die than tell her where we all live."

'Stop talking like that.' Toothless sounded unsettled. 'They would never make it off this island. I can be there before they drag you out of that miserable, flammable pile of sticks.'

"That is true," Maour conceded, wanting to calm his brother down. "It was just a possibility. This is probably not a trick. They would have just taken Fishlegs or the twins." Unless the deal was that those three received amnesty in exchange for the parents help in catching him specifically… but he didn't think Astrid could do that. Her obsession with killing dragons wouldn't let her pass up the riders of three Night Furies.

He assumed. It had been years, and Gobber's yearly letters were no substitute for actually seeing Astrid's current state. His assumptions were outdated. Hopefully, that wouldn't matter.

Time passed. The tavern became crowded, though nobody tried to occupy his table.

Then someone who seemed vaguely familiar walked in, looking around warily.

'Wow, the twins really look like their mother,' Toothless commented. 'I need to tease Blast and Tuffnut about that when we get back.'

"That's beneath you, Bud," Maour muttered, cracking a small smile and catching Ms. Thorston's attention, motioning to his table. "Besides, Tuffnut wouldn't care. He's probably been hearing that his whole life."

That was the end of their private conversation, because Ms. Thorston sat down directly opposite Maour, well within hearing distance. He didn't want to come across as insane.

"The Ingermans should be along soon," Ms. Thoston remarked. "If we're quick, we can get my questions out of the way before Ingrid starts screaming at you."

That was all said in a bored tone. Maour was reminded that he had barely known Ms. Thorston back on Berk, having had no reason to interact with her. It wasn't like he had ever voluntarily spent time with the twins back then.

"What do you want to know?" he asked neutrally. "Contrary to what they might have told you, I'm under the same rules they are. Some questions I might not be able to answer."

"Oh, I expected that." Ms. Thorston stared at him intently. "All I need to know is what's the worst that could happen if my children decide to prank the wrong person wherever you all live."

That was a strange question… but a totally reasonable one for the mother of the twins, in retrospect. "It already has, honestly. They came out of it fine, if embarrassed and tired." They had only tried to prank the Nótt family once, and once had been enough to learn that the Nótts were more than capable of striking back in kind, though for them it wasn't fun, it was revenge.

"There are no rules to punish them for destroying things?" It was impossible to tell what she wanted to hear.

"We do have rules, but they know to follow them." The twins had mellowed… slightly. Things didn't explode as often as Maour would have guessed, given the twins had access to quite a bit of willing firepower now, and he could only interpret that as progress.

"Which means there's something pretty scary on the other end enforcing said rules," Ms. Thorston concluded. "Fine by me. They seem happy, and I highly doubt they would have turned down joining me on my search if they had any reason to want out."

"What search?" Maour asked, wishing the twins would tell him… well, anything, instead of sending him in blind.

"My husband is late," Ms. Thorston said matter-of-factly. "He was supposed to be back three years ago to pick me up, once the twins were almost adults."

'I have so many questions,' Toothless muttered.

Maour did too, but he knew all too well that answers would just raise even more, so he let that pass. "They didn't want to go?"

"Nope. Fine by me. Keep them alive, will you?" Ms. Thorston asked casually. "We're pretty hard to kill, but I've got the feeling hanging around with Night Furies is slightly more dangerous than being around other Vikings."

"Less, really," Maour corrected. "Vikings aren't nearly as laid-back."

"Where's the fun in that?" Ms. Thorston pushed her chair back, standing up. "Can I assume that you'll still be around here in a few years?"

"Johann will probably know where we are if we're not," Maour answered slowly. "How many years?"  
"No idea. Depends on how much of the world I search before finding him," Ms. Thorston replied nonchalantly. "And how hard it is to remind him of why he should never be late." She patted two long knife hilts strapped to her belt, disguised by her tunic's folds. "Good luck with Ingrid's hysterics. I don't feel like sticking around for that."

Maour stared in some mixture of shock and consideration as she made her exit.

'Is it strange that I totally believe she'll find him?'

"I do too, somehow. How long it will take, on the other hand…" What would it be like, to have a mother who left her whole family behind for an unknown amount of time to pursue some other goal? He really wasn't sure how the twins were okay with all of this, but it wasn't his business… and their whole family was different in ways he really didn't get anyway.

'So that's one down. Where are the others?'

"Good question." It was getting late, and the light was fading outside, shadows creeping across the wall from the slat windows facing the street. Usually, he would still be asleep at this time of day, save for patrolling some days, which everyone did, taking turns to spread the chore out as much as possible.

Eventually, after waiting for a while longer, he saw the Ingermans as they came in. Unlike Ms. Thorston, he knew them, if only because Fishlegs had been the only neutral teen of their age group. He didn't know them well, but he knew that the father was quiet and the mother overbearing.

They saw him and came over, sitting as Ms. Thorston had. Ingrid, Fishlegs' mother, did not look happy at all, while her husband gave no hint as to how he felt about any of this.

"I hear you took another name," Fishlegs' father began politely. "Would you prefer we use that?"

"You can call me Maour," he allowed, disliking that the name that should be reserved for friends had to be given out to all Vikings, as his formal name would raise too many questions. It was still better than going by Hiccup, in any case.

"Why should we? Your mother named you Hiccup," Ingrid complained. "She was a friend. I'm not going to disrespect her like that."

"Given it is custom to name runts Hiccup, I don't think she really got to name me," Maour countered. "So it's no disrespect to _her_ if I choose to ignore what custom decided I should be called."

"Names are not important," Fishlegs' father intervened. "We have a few questions for you."

"Like why you tricked my son into-" Ingrid began angrily.

Maour slammed his hands on the table to cut her off, entirely unwilling to let that go on any further. He could almost feel Toothless snarling, though only the sound came through, and was not going to be bullied by Fishlegs' mother, of all people. Those days were long gone.

"I did nothing but introduce him to Berg. Do you have any _specific _questions that I can actually answer, or did you have nothing in mind beyond empty accusations?" He stared at Ingrid. "Because if accusations are all you have, you are wasting my time. A lot of it, in fact, and you're lucky I was in the area at all to begin with."

"We certainly don't mean to insult you or waste your time, and I believe our son made his choices on his own," Fishlegs' father agreed, casting his wife a glance. "It is clear he trusts… his friend. We want to know what happens if that… association… becomes public."

"It shouldn't, and we have plenty of ways to prevent that," Maour began, "but if it does… nothing happens. He and I, for the record, are tied to these 'friends', and we will fight for them if necessary. They will do the same for us, without hesitation." He added that last bit to placate Ingrid. "The same thing that would happen if someone in your tribe attacked another. We do what anyone would do, defend it and our people."

"And if your 'people' decide to be the ones doing the attacking?" Ingrid asked worriedly.

"Haven't so far," Maour retorted, knowing he was stepping on thin ground now. He could not give away too much. Many things needed to remain secret. "And I won't attack anyone without a very good reason. You should trust your son feels the same."

'Careful. You're doing fine so far, but still,' Toothless cautioned.

"And what about us?" Ingrid scowled. "He's our son, but we don't even get to visit him?"

"I don't think either of you would be happy living with us," Maour admitted. "And I don't think I could get that to happen anyway. The only people who get to know where we live are the ones that live there themselves." That did bring up the problem of where the Ingermans would go, though. "I'm told you left Berk permanently?"

"Things are… stagnant, almost. Nothing changes, and nothing improves." Fishlegs' father sighed. "There was no reason to stay, and with Stoick gone, I cannot see anything good in Berk's future."

"So we want to know where to go that keeps us closest to Fishlegs," Ingrid summarized.

"Here, honestly." He would not tell them just how close that was, but he could say enough. "This is the best place if you want to be visited regularly. I'm sure they'll let you stay if you ask." For Vikings, it was as simple as requesting permission and building a house somewhere. As long as the Ingermans could earn a living somehow, that was all it would take.

"That's all I needed to know," Fishlegs' father admitted. "This place is good for trade, and far more… alive… than Berk ever was. I can make a living here. Ingrid?"  
"If this is the closest place, fine." She was staring at Maour with an odd look on her face. "You look like her, you know. The same build, same eyes and hair color..."

Like his dead mother, Valka, he assumed. "No, I don't know. How would I know?"

"Nobody to tell you, not with how you left," she murmured disapprovingly. "And now, with Stoick gone…"

He was not going to get into this now. That part of his life was safely behind him, and he did not mourn it at all. Not even Stoick.

Well, nothing but what could have been. That had died years ago. In a very real way, he had mourned for Stoick long ago. Now it was nothing but a distant regret.

But if he let that show, he would get even more on Ingrid's bad side, so he decided not to respond to that, instead standing to leave.

Fishlegs' father stuck out a hand, and after a moment of confusion Maour took it, shaking his hand as if they had just struck a deal.

"I'll be sure to let him know you'll be staying," Maour remarked. "He should be able to come by often enough, though it is not a small thing, to come all the way out here."

"He and I can discuss that when he next returns," Fishlegs' father agreed. "Safe travels."

Maour grinned at that. "I'll tell the 'boat' to be extra careful on the way back."

'Just for that, I'm dunking you in the shallows when we get home,' Toothless grumbled as Maour made his way back to the woods. 'If I hurry, we'll make it back before dawn.'

"Good. I need to get started on a saddle for Heather and Einfari," Maour recalled. "No reason to procrastinate on that."  
'It's not like we have anything else to do.'

* * *

Another long, boring flight later, followed by the promised dunking, and Maour and Toothless were home. They set down, both still dripping sea water, right in front of the Svartur section of the caverns...

To be met by Von, looking very unhappy. 'Mom is sick.'

"What?" Maour slid down off of Toothless, his tiredness and good mood both disappearing in an instant. "What did we miss?"

'How bad is it?' Toothless asked worriedly.

'She's threw up all over the main cave,' Von reported sadly. 'And again a few hours later. Eldurhjarta is checking her out now, but the main cavern is really disgusting.'

"I have a bucket in my workshop to bring in some water to maybe clean the floor, but I want to see Cloey first." He took a step forward-

Only to be blocked by Von's outstretched wing. 'Eldurhjarta says we need to keep our distance until she can figure out if it's catching.'

Maour smiled broadly. "The thing is, I'm not a dragon, so I can't catch anything." It was common knowledge that it was impossible for a sheep to get a fever from a Viking, or vice versa. "So that rule doesn't apply to me."

Von shrugged, still blocking him. "Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure." And if he was wrong… oh well. It was worth the risk. Besides, Eldurhjarta was in there, so he wouldn't even be the only one risking it.

'Fine, but if Eldurhjarta yells at me I'm pointing her to you,' Von conceded, not sounding all that unhappy, and withdrew her wing. 'Go make sure she's okay, brother.'

Maour slipped past her, leaving her and Toothless out in front of the caves… in body.

In mind, he was not at all surprised to find Toothless tagging along. "I knew you wouldn't put up a fight as long as I got to go see her."

'Why should I? It's a smart rule. We're just lucky it doesn't apply to you.'

"Lucky…" He passed through the main cavern, noting the puddles of digested fish, stomach liquid, and general bile soaking into the moss. "Yikes. That's going to be hard to clean up." It might be easier to just rip out the moss that was affected and let the rest grow back to cover the bare stone.

A faint bark of pain led Maour to one of the unused side caverns. When he turned the corner, he saw exactly what he was expecting. Cloey, looking miserable, lying on her side, and Eldurhjarta mumbling and poking her in the stomach.

Cloey saw him immediately. Her eyes widened. 'You should not be here, son.'

"I'm human; it's not likely I _can _catch what you have in any case," Maour explained, going to kneel by her head. "Are you feeling any better now?" He suspected food poisoning, personally, though dragons pretty much always ate raw fish anyway, and never suffered any ill effects from that.

'A little.' Cloey yelped. 'Hey, watch it.'

'I am, Svarturkló,' Eldurhjarta replied calmly. 'This is just how I work. If you want the best chance of me figuring this out, you will let me do my best.'

'Fine,' Cloey sighed. 'I feel tired. And hungry. Does that help?'

'Do you still feel like throwing up?' Eldurhjarta absently pushed Maour out of her way and began tapping on Cloey's throat with her front paw. 'Does this make you sick?'

'No, not really, but I don't feel right, either.'

'Okay…' Eldurhjarta took a step back, closing her eyes. 'I don't think I can say for sure, but there are some things I can rule out.'

'Is it catching?' Cloey asked anxiously.

'No, none of my possible answers can be spread.'

'Then let Skuggi back in.' Cloey nodded to Maour. 'Kappi and Von too.'

'Heard that,' Toothless remarked in Maour's head. There was no need for Maour to go get him or Von. Eldurhjarta stepped out and came back with Shadow, who went to nuzzle his mate tenderly.

'Next time, throw up outside,' Shadow teased. 'If you can, anyway. I don't know how we're going to keep the cave from smelling like your last few meals for the next month.'

'We eat the same thing, Skuggi,' Cloey purred viciously. 'I would think you would not mind that smell.'

That reminded Maour that it was basically going to be up to him, with small and nimble hands capable of carrying buckets, to clean the cavern. More to do before he let himself sleep.

'Okay,' Eldurhjarta began, once everyone was there and paying attention. 'I can't say for sure what's wrong, but I have three possible answers.'

'We're listening…' Von warbled nervously.

'The first possibility is that something Svarturkló ate disagreed with her. If there are no further symptoms, that was it.'

'The best-case-scenario,' Shadow agreed.

Eldurhjarta nodded. 'The least complicated one, anyway. Another possibility is that it's one of any number of illnesses. If she starts developing any other symptoms, tell me immediately. That will help narrow it down.'

'What should we be looking for?' Toothless asked.

'I'll tell you later. If Svarturkló knows what we're waiting to see signs of, she might convince herself she's feeling those signs through worrying about it.'

That made some sense, though it was a strange concept. "Worrying about some kind of sickness might give it to you?"

'No,' Eldurhjarta huffed, 'but if I say, for instance, that you might start itching between the scales in the next few days, you will be far more likely to overreact to a normal itch and freak out. The same applies to other symptoms in some ways. If I tell her what to worry about, she will worry about it. I don't need that complication on top of an already difficult problem.'

'So watch for anything unusual,' Cloey summarized, 'but nothing specific.'

'Exactly. Hopefully, it is not something serious.' Eldurhjarta sighed. 'There is one more possibility, but it is more a coincidence than an actual option, one I'm only including because it's not impossible.'

There was something about the way she said that… "What is it?"

'Svarturkló, have you been as active as usual, lately?' Eldurhjarta asked, sounding genuinely curious.

'I've been skipping my runs recently, but yes,' Cloey responded honestly. 'Some days I feel like I've done a lot more than I actually did, for some reason.' Her voice dropped as it hit her. 'Is that one of the symptoms you're looking for? Feeling tired all the time?'

Maour _had _noticed Cloey sleeping in more often, now that it was brought to his attention. He hadn't thought anything of it at the time.

'No, not for any illness,' Eldurhjarta reassured Cloey. 'But it is curious. You've put on weight, I think. I would almost think all of this is because of an egg, but you would have figured it out if that was the case.' She gestured to Toothless and Von. 'It is not as if you do not know the feeling of carrying an egg.'

'I don't think it is that,' Cloey rumbled. 'Their eggs never made me throw up or feel anywhere near this tired.'

"Besides, we'd be able to see it," Maour added.

Everyone turned to stare at him.

"What?" He pointed to Cloey's stomach, feeling self-conscious. "See? Still pretty flat, so no egg."

Eldurhjarta laughed wonderingly. 'Are you telling me you can see human eggs before they are laid?'

Okay, now he _really _wished he hadn't said anything. "Well, we don't have eggs, but yeah. It's really obvious later on." Unless the Viking woman in question was that large to begin with, which wasn't unheard of…

'No eggs?' Von chirped curiously.

"Nope," Maour responded, hoping to cut that line of inquiry off immediately before anyone could request more than a vague explanation. "We basically skip the egg and just…"

'You're turning red, Maour. Is this embarrassing?" Von tilted her head. 'Or can you not breathe? Toothless, which does that mean?'

'Either, but I'm not sitting on him, so it must be embarrassing.' Toothless grinned toothily. 'Spill it, brother.'

"Basically, the baby just comes out of the mother at some point," Maour admitted. "No egg for us. It takes about nine months to get to that point, and by about five months through that it's really obvious." He was not going to be allowed to live this down, he could just tell.

'Well, for us it is not so obvious,' Cloey cut in, saving him from further questions. 'Four months, maybe, and the egg is not at all obvious beforehand. Then a few more months before it hatches.'

'But you do not think that is it, and you would know.' Eldurhjarta shrugged. 'So it is not likely at all.'

'Too bad,' Shadow sighed. 'Thank you, Eldurhjarta. We will be sure to let you know if anything changes.'

'I wish I could do more,' she admitted. 'I can't tell you anything useful about how to treat it when I don't know for sure what it is.'

'You've done enough. We can take it from here,' Shadow reassured her.

After Eldurhjarta left, Toothless cast Cloey a suspicious glance. 'And since you did not deny the possibility of having an egg in general, can we assume you've been trying? Without telling us?'

'Did my son just ask to be informed-' Cloey began, her tone disbelieving.

Toothess put a paw over his face, groaning loudly. 'Yes, and I take it back. It's just that last time you decided to add a person to this family and didn't tell anyone first, it wasn't the best move.'

Cloey blinked, staring blankly from her place on her side. 'Well…'

'He's not wrong,' Shadow commented. 'But I think it is also our choice whether or not we want to try for an egg, son. This is not another adoption. It is the natural way of things.'

'I know that,' Toothless complained, sitting back up. 'But some warning would be nice next time.'

'It is not working out very well anyway,' Cloey sighed. 'We've been trying for quite a while. It should not take this long. Would you have wanted to have your hopes brought up for nothing, if I cannot have another egg?'

'I think it still would have been nice to know it could happen,' Von quietly remarked. 'Even if it is only a chance.'

Cloey wilted, probably remembering just how badly Von had taken not being told last time. 'I suppose so. But now you all know, so there is that.'

'I am more concerned about you getting well, my mate,' Shadow hummed. 'And at the moment, that probably means sleeping and being pampered. No getting out of that.'

'I'm still going flying and running and fishing,' Cloey immediately announced.

'No, you're not. You have not been for the last few weeks anyway, and you _will_ get the rest you need, so that this goes away quickly.' Shadow literally set his foot down with that decision. 'We both know Eldurhjarta will tell you the same if you make me go get her advice on this, so do not waste our time.'

'Fine.' Cloey shrugged uncomfortably, groaning softly. 'I might argue if I didn't still feel a little queasy.'

"That reminds me, I need to try and get the main cavern cleaned," Maour remarked. "Von, Toothless, can you both help me?" He would figure out some way for them to make it easier even if there was only one bucket.

'Sorry you have to do it,' Cloey whined. 'I'll make it up to you.'

"No need." Maour smiled at his adoptive mother. "Happy to help." He'd clean vomit for hours if it made her feel better, but sadly that was not how things worked.

On the bright side, he might actually get some sleep before collapsing from exhaustion if he hurried. Time to find out if moss was washable.

* * *

After food, flamed fish that Einfari only partially burned to a crisp, Heather and Einfari returned to the cavern, lingering outside in the moonlight for a while. To get everyone else accustomed to Heather, or so Einfari said.

That was a good goal, because right now, hanging around the cave was awkward, to say the least. Nóttleiðtogi visibly flinched when he rounded the corner and saw her, and quickly wandered off. Nóttreiði, on the other hand, remained just outside the cavern and watched her like a hawk, growling so quietly that she could barely hear it.

That probably had something to do with one of the other Nótts, who was far less unhappy. Nótthljóður had walked right up to her and was staring curiously.

Heather got down on her knees to look the smaller Fury in the eye. "Hi."

Nótthljóður chirped happily and nudged her knees, warbling happily. It was clear she wanted something, though Heather had no idea what.

'She wants you to play with her,' Einfari provided helpfully from close by. 'Wrestling.' Nótthljóður nodded happily, still pawing at Heather's legs pleadingly.

Heather tried not to flinch as Nóttreiði's constant growling in the background rose in volume for a moment before subsiding. "Is that a good idea?"

'My jerk of a brother _knows_ you're just going to be playing with her,' Einfari said pointedly, 'so it's fine. She's more likely to hurt you than the other way around.' That was aimed at Nótthljóður, who squeaked indignantly and stomped a paw crossly.

'No claws, no teeth, and get off the moment I say,' Einfari said sternly. 'She doesn't have any of those things, or scales to protect her.'

Nótthljóður nodded impatiently, her tail waving in the air in anticipation.

"I do have teeth," Heather objected. "But yeah, no biting with them." She had no desire to feel those tiny needles sinking into her. Nótthljóður might be small, but her teeth looked extremely sharp and pointed.

Heather got down on her knees and faced her opponent. What exactly did Einfari mean by wrestling? Did dragons wrestle in the same ways humans did?

Nótthljóður leaped forward, scrabbling for a grip with all four legs. She was shockingly heavy. Heather almost collapsed under the onslaught, rolling to the side to escape, only to be tackled again... and promptly pinned. Nótthljóður grinned down at her, barking happily. After a moment of triumph, she rolled off and ran back to sit in front of Heather, ready to go again.

'Enjoying having someone your own size to play with for once, Joy?' Einfari asked teasingly.

Heather sat up, her heart racing. "I don't know how it works for you guys, but for me, that was actually scary." Even a small Night Fury was really fast and really aggressive in play. She had not been expecting that. Einfari's sudden pounce from earlier hadn't been that scary, despite her expecting this and knowing it was in play.

Einfari's grin vanished. 'Are you okay?'

"Just surprised," Heather ruefully admitted. "Next time I'll do better." Now she was starting to think about it. Nótthljóður used her paws to pin. That could be exploited.

Nótthljóður tilted her head, waiting for Heather to get up. The moment Heather sat up, Nótthljóður leaped for her in exactly the same way, clearly hoping for a repeat performance. Heather managed to grab one of the Fury's front paws with her hand, and then the other. Nótthljóður struggled, but she wasn't nearly so strong when she was trying to pull away.

Heather leaned forward, pushing Nótthljóður up onto her back legs, still holding the paws, and gently pushed the little Fury over, letting go as she did. Nótthljóður toppled and then scrambled upright, clearly confused as to how to beat that strategy.

Heather waited, a smile crossing her face. When Nótthljóður came for her next, she grabbed a front paw again, but couldn't get at the other, as Nótthljóður was waving it frantically, making it hard to reach.

So Heather twisted in how she was sitting and grabbed one of Nótthljóður's back paws instead, on the same side. Nótthljóður began barking frantically, squirming crazily, unbalanced on one side. Just to tease Nótthljóður a little further, Heather slid her grip up the little Fury's legs towards her armpits and loosened her grip a bit to tickle her. The squirming and barking increased dramatically-

A deep snarl cut through the air, and Heather instantly dropped both paws, freezing on the spot. Nótthljóður froze too.

'Brother, you ruined their game,' Einfari said coldly.

Nóttreiði stood and stalked towards Heather, growling all the while. He stopped an inch away from her face.

'He says that you are not to so much as touch her again,' Einfari supplied, coming to stand behind Heather. 'Quit it, Nóttreiði. Heather didn't hurt her. She was having fun.'

Nótthljóður looked from one sibling to the other, clearly confused. Her ears drooped, and she whined loudly.

'Yes, of course, you can,' Einfari said loudly. 'It isn't his decision to make.'

Another deep snarl cut the air at that. Nóttreiði did not agree.

A standoff, of sorts, with Heather and Nótthljóður in the middle. No one moved. No one spoke either, though for all Heather knew there was a fierce argument going on, and Einfari had just stopped participating. Heather couldn't wait to be able to hear all dragons herself, because at the moment she felt totally out of the loop.

Nóttreiði let out a growl. Nótthljóður barked angrily, yelping at her older brother, presumably saying something as she did.

Then Nóttskarpur entered the cave. Again, there was nothing Heather could hear, but all three of the younger dragons wilted slightly. Nótthljóður ran to Nóttskarpur and glared at her older brother.

Einfari purred victoriously. 'Basically, my Mother says Nóttreiði isn't in charge.' Then her purr faltered. 'She also says she wants to talk to you alone as soon as you can hear all of us.'

That sounded ominous, but Heather nodded. "I'll come to you as soon as that happens," she promised. It should only be a few days, according to what Maour had said in passing, as Heather already had hearing pinned open slightly.

With that, Nóttskarpur and Nótthljóður left the cave, the fledgling bumbling along after her mother, inexplicably clumsy now despite wrestling quite effectively just moments before.

Nóttreiði did not leave. He simply went back to his spot by the cave entrance and resumed his role as a glaring sentry.

_**Author's Note: **_**This was a bit longer than the usual chapter. The crazy part? This was originally only the first half. I had to cut that chapter into two, resulting in this and what will be chapter 7.**


	7. Chapter 7

Heather and Einfari landed on the beach on the tapered end of the island, far from the mountain. Heather dismounted and headed over to the pile of gathered firewood, setting up a fire.

'No ships within sight, but we need to be quick,' Einfari remarked, taking to the sky. 'Why is this different from my fire?'

'Maour has herbs, and we have fish,' Heather replied calmly, setting the fire up. 'I can't cook with your fire, and I want to see what can be made with all of this.' She still didn't know how Maour handled actually cooking, but this would work. It was night so smoke columns wouldn't be a problem, and Einfari was keeping an eye out for ships close enough to see the fire itself. Besides, Einfari had suggested it. That was the only reason she wasn't worried a paranoid dragon would see it as trying to draw attention. It wasn't her idea.

"Ready," Heather remarked, stepped back. A tiny blue blast of fire hit her pile, scattering it a little in the process of writing it. "Maybe hit it from a little closer next time."

'Sorry,' Einfari apologized, swooping down to grab something from the water, her voice still sounding close. 'Next time.' She quickly flew back to the beach with something in her mouth.

'We need a saddle,' Einfari remarked as she flicked a fish at Heather. 'Maour has my measurements, but I think he needs yours.'

Heather had to ask the obvious question. "Why does he already have yours?"

'He took some measurements years ago, when all of this was still new and he was experimenting with saddle designs, and I haven't grown much since then. Something about making sure the same proportions applied to all of us. I really don't understand most of what he and Toothless do to make things.'

"So we go to them?" Hadn't Maour said he would find them? Then again, what did it matter?

'No, _you _go to them,' Einfari corrected calmly. 'I need to stretch my wings, and I'd just be standing around anyway. I'll drop you off at his workshop, go flying, and come pick you up when you're done.'

"Okay." It would be nice to talk to someone she could hear who wasn't Einfari. "Where is his workshop?" They would go once she was done eating.

* * *

Heather watched as Einfari disappeared into the clouds high above the ground. "Maybe there was another reason she didn't want to stick around," she mused

Einfari had dropped her off in front of… well, to be honest it looked like a junk heap, one situated against a steep cliffside set into the mountain. There were piles of weapons, metal bits, and things she didn't recognize scattered across tables and wooden slabs set against the cliffside. At the back there was what she recognized as a rudimentary forge. It was almost unnerving, just how foreign all of the contraptions she didn't recognize were.

There were drawings next to some of them, left out in the open. What if it rained?

Or maybe they were out in the open because Maour was working here right now, and he just wasn't around at this exact moment. That would explain why Einfari had left her here without finding Maour first.

So she just had to wait. Fine by her. She wandered around the small clearing, looking through the piles of apparent junk.

Some of it was junk… but some of it was not, according to the schematics by a few of the piles. One pile, composed mostly of leather and iron rods, was clearly a half-built saddle, but one the schematic said would be dyed black, streamlined, and covered in scales.

Wait, scales? The things Einfari said took forever to get in bulk? Heather looked closer, wondering how he planned on getting enough for that. Actually, there was one on the table… she picked it up, wondering why it didn't look quite… real.

"That's not a real scale," Maour's voice explained from somewhere behind her. She had been expecting something like that, so it didn't really surprise her.

"Why make fakes?"

He walked around to the other side of the table, pulling a few other fakes of varying design out from under the leather. "Decoration, protection, and possibly fireproofing if I can figure that out. Real scales would be better, but there's no way I'll ever get enough for that."

As she had thought. "I'm here for our saddle?"

"You're here to order a saddle," he corrected. "I've got the basic design, but I need to know what extras you and EInfari want."

"Einfari said you'll need measurements from me too," Heather supplied, wondering how he intended to get those.

Maour shook his head. "No, actually, I don't. She probably thinks that because I had to get some from Fishlegs. He was a special case." He pulled out a charcoal pencil and absently flipped over one of the other designs, moving the parchment to the table between them. "So, any ideas for what you want on your saddle?"

That was a difficult question. "Honestly, I didn't think you would add anything. Just a normal saddle."

Maour cast her a wry smile. "Well, I've got a bit of time to kill. Toothless is talking to the Eldurs about something, and only one of us needs to be present for that. I'd rather not be done here until that's over."

Something about that struck Heather as odd. She decided to be honest. "I'd gotten the impression you two did everything together."

"A common misconception," Maour agreed. "But really, that wouldn't be so fun for either of us. In the end, we _are_ two different people, no matter how similar or how in-tune we are with each other."

She nodded. "I do understand. But even so… How close are the other riders and their dragons?"

Maour shrugged. "I don't really know the specifics. Partners in crime for the twins and Myrkurs, and fellow scholars for Fishlegs and Berg? Friends. Why not ask them yourself?"

"I haven't even really met them yet," she admitted. "It's been a crazy few… nights." At that, it wasn't that dark out, despite being well after dusk. Maybe her vision was already improving.

"Well, I guess you do have your hands full at the moment. How are things in the Nótt caves?"

She opened her mouth to tell him about all of the conflict, the tension and danger… and then closed it again. Something was stopping her, a little nagging feeling that told her she didn't want to say any of that.

It wasn't like Maour couldn't guess how things were going, if he knew all the dragons involved. She wouldn't be spilling any secrets.

Einfari had wanted a friend inside her family… because there were some things one just didn't make public. Whatever internal disputes were going on, the Nótt family presented a unified front to the rest of the world. That was what a family of manipulators and cynics would do.

"We're figuring it out." She didn't have the words to explain this.

Maour stared at her, his eyes narrowing. "You don't want to say." It wasn't a question. "Whatever the problem is, you'll handle it yourself."

"There's no problem, not really," she clarified. "Aside from what one would expect. I just don't feel like talking about it to-"

He cut her off with a chuckle. "To an outsider. Just like Einfari, even with Von. Someone has been very quick to start acting like a Nótt."

She didn't know what to think of that. It wasn't an insult, but it wasn't exactly complimentary either. "Maybe I already thought like one of them."

"No, I'm not trying to make it sound like a bad thing," he backtracked. "It's just… despite all the hostility I _know _is there, you're already loyal to them. Despite how all of this started, and how you got put with them in the first place."

Loyal. Was she? She just wanted a place to hide for the foreseeable future, and that meant getting on the good side of these dragons. Could that really be called loyalty, if she only did it because there were no better options?

Her mind went to playing with Nótthljóður, before they had been interrupted. No better options… but the only other option would probably involve selling this one out. Selling the knowledge of this place, of the existence of Nótthljóður and everyone else she had met, to a hostile world. Dooming them to persecution, to being hunted… much like what she would be escaping.

She couldn't do that. Wouldn't do that. That innocent and playful little dragon would not be doomed by her actions. Heather knew she would never be able to live with herself otherwise. So, was she loyal? Yes, in a way, though she had never intended to be unless it was in her own best interests.

"Heather?" Maour sounded worried. "You zoned out."

She nodded slowly. "I guess I did." She could ponder this later. "So, the saddle."

Maour sighed, clearly getting the message that she was done talking about it. "The saddle. What extras do you want?"

"What options are there?" She had no experience in saddles. How was she supposed to know what she would want?

"Well, the twins got weapon holsters, Fishlegs had me add a small satchel built into the front so he could store things…"

"Both of those, if possible." She saw no issues with that. "Other than that, I don't think we need anything else."

"Okay, got it." He made a few notes on the blank side of the parchment. "Any specific weapon for the holster to be designed for, or just some general tie-downs?"

She didn't actually have a weapon. "Just a general one." Best to be ready for anything.

"All right." He looked up, taking in their surroundings. "Did Einfari leave you here?"

"Yes, she should be back soon." Actually… Heather accessed Einfari's sight, looking in on her. It was getting easier and easier to do that whenever she wanted, though she still forgot it was an option most of the time. She was met with a view of the ocean, spinning dizzyingly. If this was Einfari 'stretching her wings' Heather was glad she hadn't been brought around.

'Heather? Done already?' Einfari asked, her voice unplacably near and yet not present.

"Yeah, we're done here." She felt a little awkward speaking to the air as if there was someone there, but of course Maour knew what she was doing.

'I'll be there in a few minutes.'

Heather returned to her own senses, feeling vaguely nauseous. "How do you stand flipping around in midair on a dragon?"

Maour shrugged, not at all bothered by the oddly sudden question. "You get used to it. I don't think it's ever bothered me, really. Fishlegs might have better advice, given he has a weaker stomach."

Heather stared at him. "You insult your own friends pretty casually," she noted.

"It's not an insult, it's the truth. We're not around Vikings," Maour countered, sounding slightly annoyed. "He knows it, I know it, and everyone who ever saw him and Berg fly the first few months knows it. It's nothing to be embarrassed about."

Heather took a step back, slightly surprised by how vehement he turned. "You called him weak. How is that not an insult?"  
"Because we are all weak in one way or another." His voice was cold. "The obsession with appearing strong and all-powerful that Vikings encourage is damaging and stupid to the extreme."

"You really don't like that, do you," she mused. "Personal reasons, I assume."

"Yes." He turned away from her, setting the parchment down on another table. "I know first-hand how destructive and discouraging it is for nobody to admit weakness. The way it works here is better. Almost nobody puts on a disguise and pretends to be perfect."

"Almost," Heather repeated. "Who's the exception?"

"I'm not going to say," Maour replied seriously, still not looking at her. "If you continue on your current path with the Nótts, you'll figure it out."

Well, that narrowed it down.

'Figure what out?' Einfari asked curiously, dropping to the ground by Heather. 'How to make a saddle?'

"I know all too well how to do that, Einfari," Maour laughed. "You can come pick it up tomorrow night. It'll be done by then."

'Thanks, Maour. It'll be nice not to have to worry about throwing Heather with more than basic turns,' Einfari rumbled eagerly.

"So I take it you want safety lines too," Maour noted. "I'll be sure to add those. Almost forgot about them."

'Not everyone wants to fall out of the saddle for fun, you know.' Einfari cast Heather a considering glance. 'Not until they're used to flying, anyway.'

Heather groaned quietly. She didn't think she would find free-falling fun.

* * *

The next night was spent flying with the new saddle. The night after, Heather woke up to a strange sound.

'Play with me?' A childish, high-pitched voice implored from nearby, one she never heard before.

A dark silhouette in an even darker cave sleepily stretched like a cat, yawning as she woke up. It was Nótthljóður. Heather figured she just realized who was asking to play, which bore the wonderful news that she could also hear dragons.

"Maybe, if your mom says it's okay." Now that conversation could happen.

Actually... it was early, and Einfari wasn't yet up. Heather didn't see any reason to wake her friend for this. It was supposed to be private, and she didn't feel that threatened by Nóttskarpur. This was safe enough… and she wanted to show Einfari that she could trust the others a little.

Nótthljóður followed her out into the central cavern. 'Dad!' she greeted happily, rushing to her father. Nóttskarpur was also there, though thankfully Nóttreiði was not.

Nóttleiðtogi looked up, purring as he saw his younger daughter. Then his gaze went to Heather, and he flinched.

Nóttskarpur sighed. 'One day at a time.' Her voice was kind and smooth.

'Yes,' Nóttleiðtogi agreed solemnly, sounding tired despite having probably just woken up. 'But even that is hard. Tomorrow night, maybe. Joy, come with me. We can go fishing.' With that, he and the fledgling left.

Nóttskarpur stared at Heather suspiciously. 'I take it you can hear us now?'

Heather jumped guiltily. "How did you know?"

'You looked confused at my mate's words,' Nóttskarpur answered helpfully. 'And you paid attention, though we made no sounds or gave any indication that something was going on. It was not a hard guess.'

"I wasn't trying to spy," Heather hastily added. "I just started hearing everyone a few minutes ago, when I woke up."

'Good.' Nóttskarpur walked closer. 'So now I can tell you this directly. My daughter likes to soften our words when translating, and much she does not convey at all.' That was said neutrally.

Heather nodded. She had suspected as much. "I figured."

Now it was Nóttskarpur's turn to look surprised. 'What made that clear?'

Well, she might as well be honest. "Nóttreiði feels like the kind of person to swear a lot, and I haven't heard any death threats yet."

'You will not hear any now either. Nóttreiði has learned that lesson once already.' A frustrated huff. 'Hopefully. Almost getting banished for trying to kill Maour has tempered him slightly, and Einfari and I have been working on keeping the more… aggressive… comments down. But that is not what I wanted to speak of.'

Heather waited, feeling nervous.

'I will protect my children with my life,' Nóttskarpur asserted. 'And I don't fully trust you yet.'

"We were just playing," Heather objected. "I was careful not to hurt her."

'I am working on the assumption you mean well.' A softer tone now. 'But wrestling with my youngest daughter is a dangerous activity for you too. She might get frustrated and hurt you. It is not safe for either of you.'

"Okay." That was fair enough.

'That being said, my son was out of line.' Now Nóttskarpur did not sound stern towards Heather at all. Her voice held long-suffering frustration. 'Know that he has no authority here. His word is worth no more than Einfari's, and either of them is overruled by myself or my mate. Nóttreiði will not strike at you.'

"That is a relief." Heather shrugged. "But his word does kind of hold power over me because we both know he could just kill me in an instant." She had no leverage against that, though Einfari would try to stop him.

This seemed to amuse Nóttskarpur. 'It is good that you see that much. But in reality, you need no leverage to prevent that. He is restrained already. It is the standing order of both myself and my mate that no matter what you do, you are to be captured, not killed on the spot.'

Well, that was... somewhat comforting? "There are a lot of ways to hurt me without killing me."

'But he is not sadistic,' Nóttskarpur countered. 'So he will not even do that.'

"Unless he gets mad enough to want me dead." Really, this didn't make her feel better at all. "What if he gets mad enough to forget?"

Nóttskarpur froze. 'How much has Einfari told you?'

"Almost nothing, at least about him." What had she said?

'It is a possibility,' Nóttskarpur admitted sadly. 'He has lost control before.'

"So in that case, I..?"

'Run. Hide. Stay away from him.' Nóttskarpur shook her head. 'It will not happen, but if it does, find me or Togi. We can calm him.'

"Okay." So really, she needed to step carefully around Nóttreiði. "Any other potential death traps I should know about?"

'Yes,' was the answer. 'Do not touch Togi without permission. Do not startle him if at all possible. He will speak to you himself soon, but know that he is not entirely in control of his own reactions.'

That was downright worrying. It seemed she needed to be careful around almost half of the family that had taken her in. That was a little discouraging.

It must have shown on her face, because Nóttskarpur warbled sadly, moving a little closer. 'We are not the best family to host a human. But most of us are trying to be better.'

"Well, you're still better than what I had before, which is nothing," Heather muttered. Then she looked up. "I'm not ungrateful, but it's really hard to be optimistic when half of your family can't stand me."

'That is not it.' Nóttskarpur hesitated, before looking Heather in the eye. 'My daughters are on your side entirely. I myself am only holding off on trust to be safe. My mate has been working for years to lessen his own issues and is more stressed about possibly wronging you than you betraying us, for he trusts the rest of us to catch you. And my son...'

"Is a jerk?" Heather supplied, instantly regretting the words as they left her mouth.

'Yes.' Nóttskarpur nodded. 'He latched on to an enemy to point his anger at, and has not yet taken to heart that his enemy is not absolute.' She whined. 'I fear that he will never grow past that almost as much as I fear the pain he will feel if he does. If he does something so terrible that it opens his eyes to all of the hurts he has caused in the past, that would be a terrible feeling.'

"Well, that's unavoidable if he's going to change at all." Heather felt far less discouraged now. "And thank you for telling me the truth. But what if I was playing some long game? You just told me how to win it in that case."

Nóttskarpur purred. 'My mate said recently that I am just the right amount of cynical. That is the voice of paranoia.' A growl. 'We have seen what it does before, with Maour. Nótts do not make the same mistake twice. I feel I can trust you and have done my part in ascertaining that you are not deceiving us, so there is no harm in telling you that it is a matter of time, not of effort, at least on my part.'

"Why do you think I can be trusted?" It was a good question, one that bothered Heather.

'Many reasons. You have not lied yet. More importantly, I know what a good human looks like. I spent a lot of time watching the other humans before they were accepted. There are similarities, patterns I can see, having seen several examples of good and bad. I just know.'

"But for Togi-"

A soft, warning growl. 'Has no one told you of how names work?'

Heather winced. "Uh, no?" Maour might have, but she couldn't remember.

'Then you are excused, but that was improper.' Nóttskarpur sat on her back legs, staring at Heather as she spoke. 'You may call my daughter Einfari, a short name because she said you could, or did not stop you when you first began to do so. Unless you are given permission, do not use any name but the full one. Nóttleiðtogi, in his case.'

"Okay, I get it now." Heather paused. "But can you tell me everyone here's short name, so I know who people are talking about?"

'A reasonable request,' Nóttskarpur agreed. 'I am Skarpur, to friends and family. Einfari you know. My mate is Togi, as you guessed. Nótthljóður is Joy.'

"What about Nóttreiði?"

A soft whine. 'He never liked any short name we could come up with, so he has none. We just call him Nóttreiði.'

That felt wrong to Heather. If short names were for people close to you, what kind of message was Nóttreiði sending by not having one at all?

But Nóttreiði was close to his little sister if no one else. So maybe he really just didn't like any short name and didn't mean anything by it.

"Well, I'm Heather," she finished with a small smile. "My real name is short enough as it is."

'And... I suppose you may call me Skarpur,' Nóttskarpur finished with a purr. 'As long as you are loyal to this pack, and this family, you are one of us. It will just take us time to accept that.'

Heather was honored, especially as Skarpur had just explained exactly how important that was, though it seemed a small gesture. "Thank you, Skarpur."

'I try not to give only bad news in any one conversation,' Skarpur joked. 'I never want anyone to dread talking to me.'

'A good strategy,' a new voice added. Einfari came out from the side-cavern, yawning toothily. 'So what's the verdict?'

'No more playing rough,' Skarpur said sternly. 'At least, not for Heather. She and Joy can find something else to do.'

'No, about Nóttreiði. Is he in trouble for being a total-'

'Yes, and you know that.' Skarpur growled. 'You also know we do not gloat when we are right.'

'Sorry,' Einfari mumbled. 'Just making sure Heather hears it from you.'

'In that case, I will repeat what I told you.' Skarpur shrugged her wings. 'He will be having a long talk with Togi tonight, and Togi was no happier than I was to hear he tried to order both you and Joy around. As I said that two nights ago, that has already happened.'

'My mother doesn't want us to try and take charge of each other,' Einfari whispered conspiratorily. 'As soon as Joy is twelve, she won't have to do a single thing Nóttreiði or I say.'

'That is how it should be. Practice your persuasion if you want to be in charge.' Skarpur glanced over at Heather. 'Or if you want to be liked, just keep trying. Togi will give you ample opportunity, but you will have to make time with Nóttreiði.'

'Heather should do him last,' Einfari added. 'That way he knows everyone else is fine with her. He likes to think I'm just blind.'

'Well, it is not just you who is blind, if that is the case.' Skarpur nodded to Heather. 'Right?'

"Right, Skarpur." Heather blinked. "Wait, does that mean something?" It might just be a name, but she felt like it was more than that.

'Skarpur means sharp,' Skarpur said neutrally. 'like a claw.'

'But in this case it means sharp in mind,' Einfari finished. 'We all know that for a fact.'

'You said it, not me.' Skarpur nodded. 'Me, Einfari, and Joy, though she is not quite old enough to be suspicious of a new person yet.'

'Hey, look at that.' Einfari nudged Heather conspiratorily. 'More than half the family already.'

"Don't make it sound like I'm trying to trick them!" Heather objected.

Einfari laughed at that. 'Fine, whatever you say. But with Nóttreiði, it might need to be a trick. He certainly won't change willingly.' With that, she darted out of the cavern. Her voice, on the other hand, did not get any further away in Heather's head. 'Come on, let's get into the air and get the night started.'

Heather nodded. 'Gotta go, Skarpur.'

'I wish you luck. My daughter is a reckless flier when she is distracted.' Skarpur grinned. 'Keep that one in reserve for the next time she messes with you.'

Heather was really beginning to like Skarpur. "I will."

* * *

The next few hours were spent in the air, practicing ever more difficult maneuvers with Einfari. They were improving slowly but surely. Or, more accurate to say Einfari was getting better at adjusting her flight so as to not almost throw Heather off with every turn. There really wasn't much for Heather to do but hold on.

Einfari laughed when she remarked upon that. 'Well, unless you want to risk my wrath by cutting off a tailfin while I sleep, you won't get to be much more involved.'

Heather flinched at that. "I might end up dead if you make that joke in public."

'That is why I made it now instead of later,' Einfari remarked casually. 'But it was funny.'

"Maybe to you. I don't even want to think about that." She didn't like the idea of…

Of hurting Einfari at all. Of her being hurt by anyone. It made her angry.

'Heather?' Einfari warbled cautiously. 'You trailed off.'

"Do you remember what you said, Einfari, about faking it until it wasn't fake?" She hadn't entirely believed that would happen, but she had done it anyway.

'Yes.' She warbled smugly. 'Was I right?'

"I think so." There was nothing more that needed to be said. They both understood.

'Fine by me,' Einfari concluded. 'And it is working for me too, just so you know.'

'What is?' a new voice asked from below and behind them. Heather twisted in the saddle to see another Night Fury flying up behind them, a female with green eyes and no scars. That narrowed it down to-

'Von!' Einfari barked mock-angrily, swinging around in a wide turn that almost had Heather dangling off the saddle. 'Since when do Svarturs sneak up on people?'

Von laughed at that, falling in beside them. 'Since a Nótt is so distracted in the air that I _can_ sneak up on them.'

'I was not distracted,' Einfari retorted with a purr. 'Have you met Heather?'

'Not personally, no.' Von nodded politely to Heather. 'I am Svarturvon.'

"Heather," she replied. "You are Toothless's..?" She would assume sister, but maybe aunt? It was hard to tell ages.

'Sister,' Von confirmed. 'Nice to meet you.' She flew a bit faster, until she was level with Einfari. 'Want to race?'

Thankfully, Einfari was quick to answer. 'Not with Heather. We're still getting used to flying together, and I'd rather not risk dropping her, even with a saddle.'

'Some other time. The saddle is good? If you need it adjusted, I can take it to Maour and Toothless for you,' Von offered.

'It seems fine to me. Heather?'

"No problems here." If anything, the only problem was user inexperience.

'Well, I'll catch up with you later, Einfari.' Von sighed. 'I should be home, anyway. Mom hasn't been feeling great for the last few days.'

'Really?' Einfari was definitely concerned. 'Is it a sickness of some kind?'

'Not one that spreads, if it is.' There was a reserved tone to Von's voice now. She wasn't saying everything. 'Eldurhjarta says to just let her rest.'

'I hope she's okay,' Einfari said solemnly. 'Come to us if she gets worse. We can help tend her, if nothing else.'

'It's not that big a deal right now, but I'll keep that in mind.' Von dropped down, turning in a tight circle and heading back.

"Are you two friends?" Heather had gotten that feeling from the easy way they talked to each other.

'Yes. I hope Svarturkló is okay.' Einfari shook her head. 'We do not fall ill often at all.'

"Do you guys have healers?" Vikings did, though whether or not said healers were helpful was another matter.

'We do. If Eldurhjarta did not tell them to do anything specific to treat it, then it is very likely nothing.' Einfari shrugged, her wing shoulders shifting the saddle a bit. 'The Svarturs know to ask for help if they need it.'

"Sometimes we get sick for no reason," Heather supplied. "It can just go away." Or it could get worse. It seemed illness was one thing dragons and Vikings dealt with very similarly.

'She will be fine.' Einfari said it decisively. 'Now, where were we?'

* * *

That night ended peacefully. Then next evening began just as quietly. Einfari and Heather went to get their breakfast, which was a mildly harrowing affair even with a saddle, and decided to eat in the forest. They set down randomly, through a small opening in the trees that made landing easy.

'This place feels like it is visited on a regular basis,' Einfari noted once they were done eating. 'It was really easy to land here; like someone has come here often enough to trim the branches.

Heather took a look around. "It's just a random bit of forest. Why would anyone want to keep coming back?" The ground wasn't disturbed, so it wasn't like someone had buried something here to hide it.

Then someone dropped down in front of them. Toothless and Maour stared in confusion, and Einfari and Heather stared back.

'So is he not coming?' Toothless asked after a moment.

'Who?' Einfari seemed just as confused. 'We just thought this was a good place to set down for a few minutes to eat.'

Maour winced. "Okay, well, this is where I usually meet your father, Einfari. So maybe-"

Einfari barked urgently. 'Yes, we're going now.' She nudged at Heather. 'Come on. This is supposed to be a private place.'

'Supposed to be. That is true.' Nóttleiðtogi walked out of the trees. 'But today it seems it is not.'

'Hey, I was leaving,' Toothless remarked quickly. 'Good luck to the rest of you!' He fled the scene.

"Thanks for that," Maour muttered. "I was just telling them that."

'No, this is good.' Nóttleiðtogi cast Maour an uneasy glance. 'I have been meaning to explain a bit to Heather.'

'You haven't already?" Now Maour sounded surprised. "Weren't you telling me you would as soon as you left here last time?'

Nóttleiðtogi nodded, ashamed. 'I did say that. But it has slipped away from me.'

"So now is a good time." Maour crossed his arms. "Go ahead." His voice was soft.

Nóttleiðtogi turned to Heather. 'I say all of this under the assumption that you are what you claim.'

"Understood. And I am, so that's fine." She wondered what it was going to be.

'I have had... bad past experiences with your kind,' Nóttleiðtogi admitted. 'Those experiences have left scars on my mind. That is the best way to describe it. I cannot look at you without feeling fear.'

That was... really not what she was expecting. "It's not anything I do?"

'No, just me.' He nodded to Maour. 'He is helping me with it, but it has taken us years to get to a point where I am not afraid of him, and that tolerance does not extend to other humans. I tell you this so that you understand. It is not my intention to be hostile, but my mind is not as it should be.'

Maour sighed. "Believe me, he's doing way better than when I showed up. He is trying."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" This was not something she had expected. It was more genuine than Nóttreiði's dislike, an underlying issue. Or so they claimed.

"Possibly..." Maour looked to Nóttleiðtogi. "Do you want to try?"

Nóttleiðtogi shook his head. 'Soon, but not today.'

"You said that about telling her this much," Maour observed dryly. "This might be one of those times where your judgment isn't the best."

Nóttleiðtogi was beginning to look distinctly uncomfortable. 'Maour, I will remind you that I would rather not discuss this in public.'

"Oh, right, sorry." Maour gestured to Einfari. "If you wouldn't mind? This is really supposed to be private."

'Why?' Einfari cast Maour a glare. 'I'm his daughter.'

'That is why,' Nóttleiðtogi growled. 'I would rather not have my weaknesses on display for you to see. Some things are easier to do alone, or as alone as possible.'

'Keeping Heather safe is my responsibility, and I'm not leaving her alone,' Einfari argued back. 'So this one you can't do alone.'

A calculating stare was thrown towards Einfari and then turned on Heather. No one spoke.

'...I see your point. Fine.' Nóttleiðtogi shook his head in resignation.

"Nothing that happens here is to be talked about," Maour warned both Heather and Einfari. "That's just how this works. Got it?"

Heather and Einfari both nodded eagerly. Now Heather was curious. Maour hadn't struck her as the healer type. But he worked with things like fear and bad memories?

Well, she would not have thought speaking to dragons possible at all. Who was she to decide if something was doable?

"Okay, this is pretty simple, really." Maour approached Nóttleiðtogi. "This," and at that, he put a hand out, "is not easy for Togi."

Nóttleiðtogi leaned in, voluntarily making contact. 'Simple enough now.'

"So... just touch him?" Was that really it? There was something else too, but she couldn't quite place it. But so far, it looked pretty easy.

'Given my reflex to that would be to jump away and blast you, no.' Nóttleiðtogi broke contact, lowering his head. 'It takes time.'

"So I should..?"

"This isn't really something you do," Maour explained. "It's just that Togi needs to not be scared of you. It will be easier for him to work through if you're, you know, here."

'Maybe I don't need to watch,' Einfari muttered. She settled down nearby, closing her eyes partially. 'I'll be here if anyone needs me.'

Heather was watching, and she could tell Einfari wasn't as uninterested as she appeared. But Nóttleiðtogi relaxed slightly. That must have been Einfari's intention.

It hit Heather, at that moment, that she had been taken in by a family of schemers, manipulators, cynics. People who figured out why others did what they did, and used it to get what they wanted. She had been told as much, but this was a stark reminder. Even when they wanted to help each other, they did it through manipulation.

Not that she minded that. It was an interesting way of looking at the world, and one she herself had begun to develop in her time on the run. Living with these dragons would just sharpen that set of skills.

She thought about that, still standing there, as Nóttleiðtogi and Maour talked. They seemed to forget about her, and she really wasn't paying attention. They just needed her to be present.

She was, at the moment, wondering what could hurt someone so bad that he feared any human, no matter how weak or harmless. Surely any fear one felt would be specific to the one who had hurt them before? it didn't make much sense. She had lost her parents, but she did not instinctively fear Berserkers. Avoid, yes, but not fear. Then again, losing her parents and village had not left much of a mark on her, from what she could tell.

"Heather?" Maour asked. "Still with us?"

Heather blinked. "Sorry, yes." She looked at Maour, and then Nóttleiðtogi, both of whom were staring at her. "Am I supposed to do something?"

'My father wants you to approach him. Just walk towards him,' Einfari supplied helpfully.

Well, she could do that. She took a step towards Nóttleiðtogi. He flinched. Really? That was a bit ridiculous. She hadn't done anything, and he was expecting it.

Another step. Another flinch. She sighed.

"What?" Maour shot her a warning glance. "This isn't easy for him."

Okay, that did it. "I lost my entire island to Berserkers, but you don't see me having a heart attack at the sight of their tribal crest." Nóttleiðtogi had to be overreacting.

A pause. Einfari growled lightly. Heather became aware she might have crossed a line. So much for understanding how people worked.

Nóttleiðtogi stared at her. 'And how did your family die?' A neutral, even tone that almost crackled with danger. 'Did you suffer alongside them, and watch as they fell, one by one, over the space of months?' Now his voice was cracking, something Heather hadn't even considered possible, given it was mental. 'Your tormentor is a faceless idea. Of course you are not scared of that. Mine is a whole species, represented in my mind by the worst it can create, a being I have personally,' and now he was roaring in anger, 'been tortured by! Do not compare our pasts!'

The silence returned, now both awkward and horrified. Heather really didn't know if 'I'm sorry' would cover her mistake. She didn't feel even slightly offended by Nóttleiðtogi's first question, given what came after. It was fair, more than fair, for him to be really, really mad.

But Nóttleiðtogi was far from done. 'Maour does not know the story. _Joy_ does not know the story yet, for she is too young. I do not tell it to anyone who does not need to know, or anyone I do not trust.' A pause. 'But it seems you need to know.'

"No, I really don't," Heather objected, mortified. "I was being rude and insensitive."

'Daughter,' Nóttleiðtogi asked wearily, 'she is one of us? Loyal, a good friend to you?'

Einfari nodded. 'Even when I'm not particularly pleased by what she does, yes.' That was shot at Heather, but it was nothing but the truth. 'I cannot say how I know, I just do.'

'Then listen,' Nóttleiðtogi growled. 'Maour, who deserves to know as I trust him and have kept the knowledge from him for far too long, and Heather, who needs to know, if she is one of us.' He glared at Heather. 'Who needs to know just how much of an accomplishment it is that she is still alive to insult me, after what she said. My self-control is good... except when this subject is involved. Maour's work is the only reason she lives to hear this.'

_**Author's Note:**_ **Well, everyone who's been wondering what Togi's past looks like and why he is as he is, just one more week to wait!**


	8. Chapter 8

The night was cloudy, and the wind whipped through the trees. Two Night Furies and two humans stood in the forest, isolated from prying eyes by tree cover and isolation. Tensions were high. Einfari was not happy, and Maour seemed equal parts frustrated and worried. Heather was mortified and a little terrified, having just said something far more offensive than she intended to a dragon capable of ending her in an instant.

And it was clear to all involved, including Nóttleiðtogi, that he could do just that. His claws were out and dug into the grass and dirt, his face twisted into a dangerous glare, just a faint hint of teeth showing. He eyed her as if considering whether or not she deserved to continue breathing, though his words implied he had already decided not to hurt her.

Maour and Einfari were also well aware of the possibility of Nóttleiðtogi attacking Heather. Einfari was subtly edging towards her, trying to get between them, and Maour had a hand out, as if to physically put himself in front of Nóttleiðtogi. It spoke of just how confident Maour was in Nóttleiðtogi's self-control that he seemed willing to try that if necessary.

'Then listen,' Nóttleiðtogi growled. 'Maour, who deserves to know as I trust him and have kept the knowledge from him for far too long, and Heather, who needs to know, if she is one of us.' He glared at Heather. 'Who needs to know just how much of an accomplishment it is that she is still alive to insult me, after what she said. My self-control is good... except when this subject is involved. Maour's work is the only reason she lives to hear this.'

Heather blanched, now extremely sorry for her tactless comment.

'Many years ago, this pack did not exist. I grew up knowing no others of my kind aside from my family. This was much further south. I, my brother, and our mother and father lived alone. One day, long ago, a human vessel landed on our small island. We thought nothing of it and made sure to stay away, assuming they would leave.'

Heather found herself imagining being in Nóttleiðtogi's place, seeing through his eyes as she did with Einfari, seeing the story from his view. It helped her pay attention and remember. This felt like something she would not want to forget. So, she let her mind fill in the gaps as it would, and listened carefully.

* * *

_Nottletogi's story painted the picture of an island, a small place of sand, waves, and rocky cliffs, surrounded by spires of rock jutting from the ocean. Home._

'_They will leave,' his mother asserted calmly. 'Do not let them know we are here, and they will leave.'_

'_Yes.' His father lay in the mouth of their cave, blocking the exit with his body, looking out serenely. 'We do not need to flee. There is nothing here for them to want.'_

'_It is not as if they could get to us anyway,' Nottletogi asserted confidently. 'They do not have wings, right?'_

'_Not that I can see, brother.' His brother leaned forward over their father's side to take another look at the distant anomaly on the main island. 'I want to go get a closer look.'_

'_They are leaving,' his mother stressed. 'There is no need.'_

* * *

'But they didn't leave. They set up camp,' Nóttleiðtogi continued. 'So that night, my brother went for a closer look. He did not come back.'

* * *

'_Where is he?' his father snarled. 'I was blocking the exit to stop either of you from doing something stupid!'_

_Nottletogi didn't want to admit he had seen his brother sneak out over their sleeping father's body late in the night, but he had no choice. 'He went out to take a closer look.'_

'_And he has not come back?' his mother gasped. 'We need to get him back. Now!'_

'_Fine.' His father stood, shaking himself to wake fully. He spread his wings, looking out at the camp and fire. 'We will destroy them, recover him, and then I will lecture him on acts of stupidity.'_

_The three of them set out, flying the short distance to the main island. They swooped low, looking over the camp for signs of the missing Night Fury._

* * *

'We were fools,' Nóttleiðtogi snarled. 'They took us out of the sky with a single arrow each. We were targets because they were ready and waiting for us.'

* * *

_A sharp pain in his chest shocked him, but it was nothing compared to the spreading numbness. He shrieked, falling to slam into the sand, digging a small furrow as he skidded to a stop. There was another, similar shriek and thump, and he knew his mother had been hit. But what of his father?_

_A thud, different in sound, echoed through the night, along with a horrible screech of pain. His father had not landed as luckily as he or his mother had, by the sound. But he couldn't so much as move his ears._

_Creatures, humans, dragged him over to their docked ship, roughly pulling him aboard. They spoke, but he did not understand them. They wrapped ropes around him and put something on his head, though he could not move anyway. His body felt pained, throbbing agony that was rising with every minute, piercing the numbness._

_Then some liquid was forced into his mouth and the pain faded. He looked around, noticing that his mother and brother were in similar situations. But what of his father? He could clearly see the camp over the railing of the ship… and there his father was, being pulled over into the firelight._

_The humans roughly rolled him over and spoke to each other. Then they settled back down… _

* * *

'They just left my father there. I still don't know why, aside from the fact that he was hurt. We were unable to do anything but watch the poison slowly kill him.' There was bleak horror in Nóttleiðtogi's voice now.

How bad would that be? Worse than just finding the aftermath. He had only just begun, and already his story outstripped hers in just how horrible it was. She didn't want to hear the rest, but at the same time she had to know.

* * *

_Morning. He could hear soft sobbing from his mother and would have joined in if he did not feel so tired and sad, too tired to howl as he might have. His father was gone, having at some point stopped breathing._

_The humans stirred, gathering around the fire. Later, they moved to his father's body, and…_

* * *

'They didn't even let his body rest undisturbed. He was worth something, even dead. We also had to watch as they skinned him, cut him apart, taking any and everything they considered valuable or interesting. Only then did they leave, taking us with them.'

* * *

_He was howling and whining now, despite thinking himself too tired for that earlier. There was no shame in it. What had been done to his father was horrible. Why had these humans come here? It didn't matter. What mattered was that they had let his father die a slow death, cut him apart, stolen his skin and scales and other things, and left the scattered remains to rot. For no reason._

_Time passed. They were held captive, unable to escape these terrible they came to another island, one with scores of the humans, hundreds of them._

_Some came aboard and left with bits of his father's skin. Others stared at him and his family and spoke with the ones responsible for bringing them there. Eventually, they were taken by one of those humans and brought to a new place._

* * *

'This new human seemed to run the whole island, I think. He had plans for us.'

* * *

_The first week, they were left in cages like before, these encased in stone as opposed to wood. He could see a stone valley out through the bars on one side, and his mother and brother through the bars on the other. They mourned his father, and plotted escape, but never got out._

_Then humans could be heard everywhere, a lot of them. He watched as his brother was herded out into the stone valley… along with an angry Skrill._

* * *

'He died in seconds.' Nóttleiðtogi stopped for a moment, bowing his head sadly. 'He did not know much of fighting, and the Skrill was battle-hardened. They attack our kind on sight. This one was no different.'

* * *

_More mourning, worse than before. His mother was near inconsolable, and he felt miserable all the time now. What was the point of all of this? Was he going to be next?_

_But it did not happen again. Instead, his mother suffered. Dragons of other kinds, less aggressive kinds, were let into her cage and forced themselves upon her, tied and helpless in her cage. Some of them apologized, saying that they would be killed if they did not try, and some did not. Some even enjoyed it. He could do nothing but offer empty words of comfort as she suffered every few days for no reason._

* * *

"I…" Maour looked like he really didn't want to speak but felt he had to. "I can guess why."

'So can I, Maour.' Nóttleiðtogi was not even looking at them now, his eyes closed in grief even as he spoke. 'But we cannot interbreed with other kinds of dragon. It does not work, as far as I know, all other kinds being so different, and my mother proved that, against her will. But my part in all of this has not yet begun. Keep listening.'

* * *

_Then came a day when he was knocked out and moved to another cage, one on a ship. He hated the humans for leaving his mother alone, hated them for his imprisonment, able to see the sky but not reach it, trapped inside a cage, and hated his life in general. All of this because his brother had not been careful and had wanted to investigate. Was it his brother's fault? Or was it just that they had not known enough?_

_After a few weeks, he was once again transferred to another cage. This time, though, something very strange was going on._

'_Odd…' a Night Fury with yellow eyes remarked, staring at him through the bars. 'Why in there?'_

'_Two new today, but only one in here?' Another Night Fury, a male with green eyes. 'What is different about you?'_

_Two? There were so many of his kind in the large cage directly opposite one side of the bars. He couldn't even see them all! 'Who is the other new one?' Maybe it would be his-_

'_I am.' A male with pale orange eyes pushed his way through the small throng. Oh. Looking around, his mother was not there. She must still be suffering back where they had been before._

* * *

'Skuggi, Skarpur, Kló, Jós, Hryðjuverk, Fjall, and Ský,' Nóttleiðtogi recited quietly. 'All young adults like me, most of whom had been caught out searching the world for mates. Eyðileggingu was there too, having been caught with his daughter, the only family member anyone had there. Hetja was the orange-eyed Fury, who had also been out looking, though he also spoke of an older brother and a falling-out he wanted to make right. And one more Fury, one we did not meet until later.'

'Myrkurheili?' Maour guessed.

'No, actually. His is a different story not connected to all of this,' Nóttleiðtogi corrected. 'I was the only one in a smaller cage, while they were all together in a large one. We did not find out why for a few more weeks.'

* * *

_One day, something was different. Usually, they were not even acknowledged, stuck in a small room in two cages with no other occupants, alone aside from being brought food and water, and occasionally being knocked unconscious so that their cages could be cleaned. Today, though, the humans were arguing._

'_Does anyone understand them?' the female with grey eyes like his own asked testily. 'It would be useful to know what they say.'_

_A scattered chorus of denials followed that question. It seemed nobody did._

_Then a large human he recognized entered the room, cowing the other humans into submission with a word and a bark. They rushed to his cage._

_His cage. He backed up, sticking his tail through the bars dividing his cage from the other in his need to be far from them. If they wanted him, it could not be good. He knew that human. And it knew him because it was wearing his father's skin. It had looked at him on that ship months ago._

_The cage was opened. He snarled at the humans. But they made no move to pry him out. Instead, they watched him._

_Then, the young male human with his father's skin yelled something, and a dragon entered the room, walking quickly despite a pronounced limp. Walking of its own accord, unrestrained and unhindered save for a metal loop around its neck and another pinning its wings to its body._

_It was another Night Fury. That was clear. But it was scarred, so scarred. Strange marks, not like those gained in combat, marks that looked to have been done intentionally while the dragon was unable to stop it. Small scars, intricate patterns that might have been impressive if not done in a way that broke the body a little bit with every line. _

_She had blue eyes, shallow and unaware._

_The male with his father's skin gestured and barked at her, and the scarred female placed her head on the ground. The human put its paw on her head, pushing down, and she did not even acknowledge the pain the pressure must have brought._

_It was clear, what the human was displaying. She was broken… as they would be._

_Then the human gestured at his cage, grinning cruelly, and the broken female entered, allowing the humans lock her inside. Inside, with him._

_He stared at her. She stared blankly at him._

'_They can't seriously think that's happening,' one of the other dragons remarked._

'_They think it will happen with us, too,' the grey-eyed female from before noted with the air of one who finally understood. 'Why else put us all together? Not that any of us would be stupid enough to do that.'_

_He understood now too. They wanted him to mate with her. To make more Night Furies, for whatever purpose._

_But the purpose was also clear. To create more of this broken female's kind. Mindless slaves to the same twisted human._

_And he had for some reason been chosen to be hers._

'_And why him?' Hetja asked. 'He isn't the biggest of us males, or the strongest, and he wasn't even the first male here. What makes him different? For that matter, why only him? Why not all the males, to make it more likely one will decide to cooperate?'_

_All good questions they had no answers to. It didn't matter. Someone had decided he was to be hers._

* * *

'It took them a few days to figure out I wouldn't do that,' Nóttleiðtogi recounted with a shudder. 'That was when the same male started trying to break me. To make me obey.'

Heather shivered. This was far beyond anything she could have guessed to be the reason for Nóttleiðtogi's issues. She dreaded what came next in the story.

'I am not going to tell you of the torture,' Nóttleiðtogi admitted. 'Know that it was horrible, and see the results. That is enough.'

"The results..?" Maour asked slowly, looking as if something had just started to make sense. "Is this why..?"

'There is a reason I never show my underside,' Nóttleiðtogi agreed quietly. 'Not with any I do not trust entirely.'

"So when you showed your belly to me in one of our sessions a few months ago…" Maour's eyes widened.

'Exactly. I trust _you_,' Nóttleiðtogi confirmed with a glance at Heather as if to drive in that the same did not apply to her. 'This story really is long overdue for you. She does not get the same privilege.'

"Well then tell me what I would see if you want any of this to make sense." She tried to sound sure, but her voice wavered.

"He is scarred from the underside of his chest, along the whole bottom of his body," Maour explained. "Hundreds of thin lines, patterns, all over."

Heather thought back to every time she had ever seen Nóttleiðtogi. It was true; he had never so much as sat on his hind legs, though that seemed a common thing among Night Furies when they were interacting with humans, a way to be looking down instead of up.

'But I am not done telling this story.' He seemed to lose a small bit of the bleak weight speaking brought.

'It only gets better from here,' Einfari remarked. Heather had almost forgotten she was there.

'Indeed, though it did not seem like that at the time,' Nóttleiðtogi agreed.

* * *

_Another end to the pain, to the horror of that young male flaunting his father's skin and howling for him to submit while others carved lines of pain on his underside. It would be a relief… if he did not know it was all going to start over in the morning. He whined, unashamed, unable to so much as lick his own wounds. His muscles were locked from straining, his underside burning with pain and bleeding._

'_You did not submit.' It was not a question. It never was._

'_No,' he whined. 'Never… that.' That would be the end, in more ways than one. He would not be like the female sitting awake but not aware in the other corner of their cage. Never like her._

_Skarpur pressed her face against the other side of the bars between them, staring at him from up close. 'Any ways out?'_

_Another routine, one that helped keep him sane. Pity might break him. Relying on him to find an escape kept him strong. He was the only one who could, being the only one ever let out of the cages. Skarpur made sure he remained aware at all times. Aware of anything that could be exploited._

_He shook his head, the same reply as every day before. Nothing._

'_You'll find something.' She was sure. 'We sure aren't going to in here. Just keep looking.'_

_He felt a flash of an emotion that was entirely inappropriate given the situation and his own physical state. The human with his father's skin had made a mistake if it wanted him to help make eggs. It had put Skarpur in another cage._

_Not that either of them was stupid enough to do so here, or that she even returned the feeling, but still. That also kept him strong, pointless though it was._

'_Skarpur, move.' Hetja almost pushed her aside in his haste._

'_Any luck?' Nottletogi mustered the strength to clear a line of sight for Hetja. To make sure Hetja could see the broken one in the other cage._

'_I think she heard me today,' Hetja muttered stubbornly. 'She responded.'_

'_She yawned, Hetja.' Skarpur did not sound discouraging so much as cautious of false hope. 'I do not think that is something one does in understanding so much as tiredness.'_

'_It was something, Skarpur.' Hetja was easy-going about everything but this. 'We have not seen anything from her aside from that. I call it progress.'_

* * *

'Hetja worked with her, trying to break through to something more than mindless obedience,' Nóttleiðtogi recounted. 'He was stubborn. Meanwhile, the others formed attachments, despite the circumstances. Most of us _were _looking for mates anyway, and nobody doubted that we would somehow escape eventually.'

'And then?' Einfari sounded positively gleeful. 'This part, I wish you would tell freely. Hearing it once was not enough.'

'Daughter, that would be torture for me.' Nóttleiðtogi growled warningly. 'To remember this is just as painful as the rest.'

'Sorry. Go ahead.' Einfari whined apologetically.

* * *

_Hetja was stubborn. Who could have guessed it would pay off? Days, weeks on end spent speaking to the broken one, talking. She did not talk, so Hetja spoke to her, telling her stories, jokes, riddles. Anything to get a response, but nothing worked._

_Nothing worked… until something did._

'_Three.'_

_It was such an innocuous comment that he almost didn't realize who it had come from at first, wrapped up in wishing his body did not hurt, waiting for sleep to relieve his pain for a while._

'_What..?' Hetja's voice was disbelieving. 'Did anyone else hear that?'_

_Skuggi nodded vigorously. 'It was not one of us. What, exactly, did you say to her?'_

'_I was telling her a story,' Hetja recounted excitedly, staring at the broken female, who stared back blankly, giving no sign that she had spoken. 'About how long I searched for others of our kind with no success, and about the Skrill I had to dodge along the way. Then I asked if she had ever fought-'_

'_Three.' Her voice showed no signs of disuse, but it felt old. 'Killed three. Long ago.'_

_He looked closely at her. She was not moving, not looking at anyone… but was that a hint of awareness in her eyes?_

'_Do you have a name?' Hetja asked, speaking slowly and clearly, making it obvious he was asking her specifically._

_Silence. She slowly turned to look at Hetja. Yes, there was something behind her eyes now, something that had faded but was now returning._

'_No.'_

_By now, everyone was paying attention, silent and hopeful. Hopeful for anything that might help get them out, though she was as trapped as they were._

'_Did your parents give you one?' Hetja asked kindly._

'_Yes. He made…' She whined, showing more emotion than any of them had seen from her. 'I have no name. No one ever used it.'_

'_We would use it,' Hetja offered. 'Can you remember?'_

'_No.' It was said immediately. 'It has been too long.' She looked out at the larger cage, at the small crowd of Night Furies within. 'I… so many…'_

'_And one more,' Nottletogi rasped from his place in her own cage, unwilling to be ignored._

_She turned to look at him… and froze._

_He realized after a moment of confusion that she was staring at his injuries. The ones so like her own. She must have known what that meant._

'_How long?' She spoke as if to herself, her tone dangerous. 'How long did I hold out?'_

_He answered anyway. 'I don't know.'_

'_But… I did not hold out forever,' she mused. 'I gave in. I stopped thinking… did what he wanted…'_

_She was still staring at his injuries._

'_I led others into war for him.' Eerily still, the only indicator of her mood was her voice. Anyone who could not hear them would not know anything was going on. 'I killed others for him. Let him think for me. It was the only way to escape the endless pain.'_

'_How long..?' he prompted. 'How long since you began to do as he said?'_

'_I don't know,' she growled. 'Long enough to forget my name. To forget how to speak at all. But not so long. It was an adult when it broke me, and it is not so much older now.'_

'_Do you know a way out of here?' Skarpur asked urgently. 'Some weakness we can exploit?'_

_The female didn't respond. She stood, walking closer to him. He did not flinch. There was nothing she could do that would be worse than what he suffered every day, and she did not seem dangerous at the moment._

_She nudged his injuries. 'Have you broken yet?'_

'_No.' He said it decisively but without scorn for her. 'I have support here. I will never break. It will kill me first.'_

'_Support…' She glanced over at Skarpur. 'A mate?'_

'_A friend,' Skarpur supplied. 'We didn't even know each other until we were locked up here.'_

'_A mate,' the female repeated as if she had not even heard Skarpur. 'Separated by bars, one tortured… put with me…'_

_He would have objected, but Skarpur shook her head before he could. She was willing to let the female believe it if only to see where she was going with this._

'_I fought for him. Killed for him. But one of you brought me back. Who brought me back? Who talks to me?' She never let her eyes move from his injuries, for some reason._

'_I did,' Hetja answered._

'_Thank you.' She snarled aimlessly. 'I am his surrogate alpha, leading other prisoners into battle. They do not accept me.'_

_He still wasn't sure where she was going with any of this._

'_Never again.' She moved just close enough to touch his open wounds with her nose, her eyes still staring. 'One of you brought me back. I will get you all out.'_

_Had he heard that right? 'You know a way to escape?'_

'_No.' She took a step back, her eyes closing. 'I know a way to destroy, one he never got to see. It has to be accepted, needed. He never told me he needed it.'_

_Now she was talking nonsense-_

_A faint blue glow emanated from her nostrils and back. As he watched, astonished, it spread to her entire body, her skin beneath her scales glowing blue, lighting the dark room. She opened her eyes, the blue of her body now matching her hard stare. She was still looking at his injuries._

'_I have a reason.' A nod to him. 'You give me reason. I will not let you break as I did. I will not watch your mate grieve for you.'_

_She turned to the bars separating their cages. 'Stand back.'_

'_We tried that,' Skarpur objected, though she did as told. 'All of us together could not-'_

'_I have need,' the female repeated. Then she started flaming the bars, her fire white-hot and huge, a torrent far beyond anything any of them could produce. It went on and on, no end in sight, for minutes without ceasing._

_It was amazing._

_The bars began dripping, melting beneath her impossible power. She broke the separation between the cages and stepped back, not even looking tired._

_Skarpur rushed to him through the melted opening, licking his wounds frantically… and speaking quietly for only him to hear. 'Play along. If separated lovers are what she needs to be motivated, we can provide that.'_

_He laughed quietly at that. 'Can do.'_

_The female did the same to the door of their small cage, breaking it with her unnatural flame. She left the cage, going to stand by the door. The rest of them followed._

_She turned to look at all of them, still glowing. 'Leave. Escape. Survive.'_

_There was weight behind her words now, a curious feeling he did not understand. From the unsettled growls he heard throughout the rest of the group, it was not just him. But nobody objected._

_Nobody, except for Hetja. 'I go where you go,' he said solemnly. 'You did not have support. Now you do.'_

_She considered him. 'Where I go is not a good place.'_

'_But I follow anyway.'_

'_Indeed.' She sighed. 'You may do as you wish.'_

_Again, with that weight, though this time it was clearly only directed at Hetja._

_Then they ran, the female leading the way, blasting anything that moved. The building was one of many, small and easy to escape, in the end. They leaped into the sky, faltering but persevering, cramps small hindrances against the adrenaline of escape, and flew away._

_Until it was apparent that Hetja and the female were not following. The sounds of overpowered blasts and normal shots in tandem told the story even as the rest of them circled above, calling for the two to join in fleeing._

_They were destroying the male's island, all that he had built. Side by side, they moved through the compound, her blasts destroying small buildings outright and crippling anything bigger, there being seemingly no limit to her shots. Hetja protected her, killing any who attempted to stop her._

'_Why aren't they leaving?' Kló asked frantically._

'_Her wings,' Skuggi replied sadly. 'They are restrained. She cannot fly… and Hetja will not leave her.'_

'_Then we go down there and make sure nothing survives but them!' Skarpur snarled. 'Then we can figure out how to get her back into the air.'_

_She was right, and they all knew it… but nobody moved to go down there. They could not return._

'_What is this?' Skuggi yelled angrily. 'I want to go back! Something is not letting me!'_

'_Same here!' Nóttleiðtogi yelled. Then what the female had done became clear. 'Somehow, she isn't letting us go back!' She had told them to escape, and now they could not disobey._

_They circled above the chaos, desperately trying to break whatever strange hold her words had over them, failing entirely._

_They bore witness to the destruction. To the moment Hetja fell, unable to fight any longer, killed by the few remaining soldiers. And they watched as the male himself faced down the glowing female, howling and brandishing a staff. They watched as she blasted him, but the skin of his father protected him. Mostly. It was draped across both shoulders, used as shields, but that did not stop the force from damaging one of his arms quite badly._

_All of this they saw from afar. They saw it nonetheless. They saw the moment the male, injured but triumphant, blocked one final shot with his ruined arm and cloak, and killed the glowing female._

_Only then could they disobey. But there was no point._

* * *

"So that madman is still out there somewhere?" Maour asked

'Presumably,' Nóttleiðtogi agreed worriedly. 'But the story is not quite over.'

* * *

_They fled for a few hours, stopping on a small island that was more a few rocks in the sea than anything._

'_We are free,' Jós remarked tiredly. 'Now what? Do we go our separate ways?'_

_Nóttleiðtogi immediately looked to Skarpur, who stared right back, having been caught in doing the same thing. 'I don't know if we should.'_

'_I mean…' Skarpur laughed slyly. 'We were pretty good at faking it...'_

'_Funny,' he grumbled, inwardly hoping she meant it. 'We may as well see if it works out. No reason to go looking…'_

_But he did have reason to go looking, if not for a mate. 'But I need to rescue my mother. She is still captive in another place. Her situation is worse than ours was.'_

'_I left my family a long time ago,' Fjall admitted. 'I went in search of knowledge and other things.'_

'_Same,' Ský provided confidently. 'To both knowledge and the other thing.'_

_Well, that was convenient, if something he could not comprehend voluntarily doing in their place. 'Is there anyone who has a home they wish to return to?'_

_Skuggi spoke up. 'I know a place I wish to reside, though my family is not there. It is far from here. Any who would come with me,' and at that he looked at Kló, 'are welcome to. We are, I think, safer in groups.'_

'_That is not how we usually do it,' he agreed, 'but it makes sense. And I don't think any of us want to be alone again so soon after this.'_

_No one objected to that._

'_So we go for Togi's mother, and then to the place Skuggi knows,' Skarpur summarized. 'A good plan.'_

* * *

Heather had a terrible feeling that the plan had not succeeded, because Nóttleiðtogi's mother was not here today, as far as she knew.

"So you went back," Maour said hesitantly. "Was she still there?"

Nóttleiðtogi laughed hollowly, his voice laden with pain. 'In a way.'

* * *

_Nóttleiðtogi did not believe his eyes. Surely this was a cruel joke. She was the only one left of his family. This could not be._

'_I'm so sorry,' the Nightmare in the opposite cage whined. 'She begged me to do it. For weeks, because I was the only one they kept putting in with her that would listen at all. She was in agony.'_

'_You killed her,' he whispered softly. 'because she asked?'_

'_She begged!' The Nightmare was moaning. He was large, but not that old. He sounded sincerely sorry. 'She said she didn't want to live! That-'_

'_Stop it!' Skarpur barked from her place hidden in the shadows. 'He does not need to hear that! What is done is done.'_

_He was glad he had let her come on this infiltration. A part of him wanted to know why his mother had wanted to die, but another part of him already knew the answer, and hearing it spoken and confirmed would only increase the horrible guilt he felt. She had thought him dead too. His disappearance had killed her, in the end. The body lying there in a cell, long dead, was enough nightmare fodder. Why had they left her here? Laziness, perhaps._

'_Togi, we are not safe here. We need to leave.' Skarpur slunk into the open and checked the exit. 'We are risking ourselves for nothing now.'_

_For nothing… He took another look at the Nightmare who had killed his mother._

'_It isn't his fault,' Skarpur growled. 'Killing him will not make you feel any better.'_

'_I did not plan on it,' he lied. But which did he want more? Some petty semblance of revenge, or Skarpur's approval?_

_She was right. It wouldn't make him feel any better. He couldn't trust his emotions to guide him, so he needed to trust logic. Reasoning._

_Logic said he shouldn't kill the Nightmare. It had only done as she asked…_

_No. It had also forced itself upon her. Again, not its fault. He knew it might have been thrown into the arena to die if it did not comply. That did not make it any less wrong._

_What to do…_

_He looked around, at the various other dragons who lingered here, most watching silently. This was the place breeding dragons were kept, it seemed. He remembered many of these. The ones who had laughed at her. The ones who had said nothing. The ones who had apologized to her but done it anyway._

_The only ones he did not see were the rare few that had refused to do it at all. They were all dead._

'_I won't kill you.' He spoke loudly to be heard by the ones who were watching. 'But I'm not going to risk myself to save you, either.'_

'_We don't know how, anyway.' Skarpur glanced down the corridor. 'And if what you told me of this place is right, we do not have long to get out. Humans will be coming to check this area soon.'_

_She was right. They couldn't save these dragons even if they wanted to, not without finding a way to break open the cages. He would have risked everything for his mother…_

_But he would not risk anything for these dragons. He followed Skarpur out, never looking back._

* * *

'It was not worth the risk,' Nóttleiðtogi concluded.

"I get that…" Maour didn't seem happy with that. "But leaving them like that? You even said there were good dragons there."

'I would not do the same if I could go back and relive that moment,' Nóttleiðtogi agreed. 'But I also would not risk my life to save them now, either. Sometimes, you can only save a few people. Sometimes, it's not up to you to save everyone.'

"So what would you have done if you could go back?" Maour asked.

'I would have left, but I would have come up with a plan to destroy that entire island later, a way to set them all free,' Nóttleiðtogi explained. 'A way to do it without risking myself, Skarpur, or anyone else in the pack. But that might have been impossible. I don't know, and that was decades ago. I'm not even sure I could find my way back there now if I tried. It has been a long time, and we island-hopped frequently in the past.'

"I guess…" Maour shrugged. "You do have a point about it not being possible to win every battle. I learned that the hard way."

With his island, Heather assumed. He had not won them over at all, though she knew now that he had tried.

'There is only a little more,' Nóttleiðtogi continued.

* * *

'_Sorry about your mother,' Skarpur whined as they flew back to rejoin the others, leaving the island behind. 'Was she the only one you had?'_

_Nóttleiðtogi didn't want to talk about it. But if anyone was close enough to hear it, Skarpur was. 'No. My brother and father both died too. My brother died here, and my father the night we were all captured. I don't want to talk about it.'_

'_I'll keep it quiet,' Skarpur agreed. 'Will you tell the others if they ask?'_

'_No. Not for a while. Maybe someday.' He didn't want to be pitied. 'They do not need to know that my entire family is dead.'_

'_Not everyone,' Skarpur suggested. 'You know that we are all going to live wherever it is that Skuggi is suggesting. We are your family too.'_

'_It doesn't work like that,' he objected. 'They are all friends, but I cannot call them family. We flew different paths in life, and if need be will fly our separate ways once more. A family doesn't separate permanently by choice.'_

'_They are friends.' She seized upon that, her voice considering. 'And what am I? You had better think quick, Togi.'_

_He answered without hesitation, his thoughts on her made clear by one final loss. 'The only one I have now. You, I can call family.' And more._

'_Not yet,' she growled. 'Did I ever say yes?'_

_He faltered in midair, dreading what would come next. Would he even survive yet another loss? Would she be so heartless as to reject him now, of all times?_

'_And I won't,' she continued, 'until you are done mourning your mother. It feels wrong to let you make an important decision right now.'_

'_That might take a while,' he admitted._

'_Don't worry, it's not as if you have competition for me,' she purred. 'Everyone is pairing up, and old Eyðileggingu doesn't even want another mate.'_

_He clung to that. She would wait for him. They would all go somewhere safe, somewhere he would never have to see humans again. His nightmares of the one with his father's skin would fade someday._

* * *

'We went where Skuggi had suggested, settled down, made ties… and then had to leave a few years later, when humans took an interest in the island. So we just kept moving, every time they showed up.' Nóttleiðtogi shrugged. 'Myrkurheili finding us is another story, one I was not really that involved in. The same applies to Svarturkló's disappearance and eventual return…

'Which brings me to the present day, when an insolent hatching claims with all certainty that I am silly to fear humans.'

He took a prowling step towards Heather, claws digging furrows in the forest floor.

'When I see you, I see my mother, chained and mated against her will.'

Another step. His tail started lashing back and forth. Einfari matched him, ready to leap to action.

'I hear sharp blades hacking at my father's body, butchering him.'

Another step. His wings stretched out above, making him look larger than life. Heather could feel tension building. Einfari's breath wafted hotly from behind, Nóttleiðtogi's from the front.

'I feel the unending torture they put me through to break my spirit.'

Another step. Einfari whined. Nóttleiðtogi took in a deep breath and roared at the foliage above.

'I see the endless hatred and malice your kind is capable of!'

Einfari had her head over Heather's shoulder, caught between protecting her charge and standing against her father. Maour stood next to Heather, hands held out with palms up to try to calm him down. Heather closed her eyes and waited for the building tension to cause Nóttleiðtogi to snap.

'But…' He deflated slightly, his eyes going to Maour. 'I do not let that stop me from seeing the truth. Some of you are bad, and some of you are not. It is just hard for me to truly believe that.' He turned away, dropping his threatening posture in favor of one that looked tired and frustrated.

Einfari let out a sigh of relief. Maour relaxed. Whatever danger there might have been was over with.

That left Heather with nothing to do but dwell on just how horrible she had been. What could she possibly say to all of that? Sorry wasn't even close to good enough.

Maour approached Nóttleiðtogi again. "I understand now," he said, putting a hand on Nóttleiðtogi's side. Heather noted that Nóttleiðtogi didn't even flinch. "What part of that should not be told? A lot of it sounds like stuff everyone knows."

'The fates of my family, and how close I came to breaking,' Nóttleiðtogi supplied. 'All of those who escaped that island know, as I told them over the years, but none of the younger generation outside my family.'

"I promise not to spread the story without permission," Maour began hesitantly, "but if you would, I keep as few secrets as possible from Toothless."

'I do not know him as well as you,' Nóttleiðtogi objected. 'But... he has never pressed you to be included in these sessions, despite his protective nature.'

"He did at first, but he understands." Maour nodded. "He would keep it secret, and likely respect you just as much as he does now."

'Fine. You may tell him, but no one else.' Then Nóttleiðtogi glared at Heather. 'And you tell no one whatsoever.'

"Who would I tell?" Heather asked, almost offended. "I live with your family, who pretty much all know already. And weren't we already sworn to secrecy on everything that happens here?"

'You will remember and never break that secrecy,' Nóttleiðtogi remarked dangerously. 'This is the only time I will remind you.'

'I know how to keep things secret,' Heather replied. "Can I apologize now?"

'No. As long as you never do that again, I will forget about this time.' He said it as if it was some great compromise. 'I understand speaking out of turn through ignorance.'

"So… should we try again?" Maour asked hesitantly.

'It is your decision, Maour, but I would rather not,' Nóttleiðtogi admitted.

'Why is it his decision?' Einfari warbled curiously.

'My judgment in these matters is not the best, so I listen to Maour here. He has the final say in what we do because if I decided, we would never make any progress.' Nóttleiðtogi growled softly. 'It works this way.'

"No, I think we can try again some other day," Maour decided. "When tensions have died down a bit."

'Good.' Nóttleiðtogi walked off into the trees, disappearing from sight.

"I get why you did that, Heather…" Maour shrugged aimlessly, seemingly at a loss.

"It was a stupid thing to do, I know." She turned away, feeling miserable. "Believe me, I know."

After hearing all of that, she felt… hopeless. Not only was there no way she was ever going to get Nóttleiðtogi's approval and trust, but she was also torturing him just by living in the same cave system. He didn't deserve that. Not after all she had been told.

'This was a setback,' Einfari supplied. 'But not the end. You'll just have to keep trying, Heather. And now you understand, at least.'

"Keep trying?" She crossed her arms. "What part of any of that tells you he'll _ever _be okay with me?"

'When he let Maour touch him without even thinking about it,' Einfari replied confidently. 'You didn't see how it was back when Maour was new. It was just as bad, if not worse. He got over that… somehow. It isn't impossible.'

"It isn't impossible… but it takes time." Maour looked Heather in the eye. "You need to let it take time. Not push and get frustrated every time his issues push right back."

"Got it." She went over to Einfari. "Let's go. There's no reason to stay here." She wished they had never set down in this clearing.

Einfari complied, but once they were up in the air she objected. 'Cheer up. If you can, anyway. Hearing that didn't get any easier the second time around.'

"I don't know what to do," Heather admitted freely. "Not with him."

'Let him adjust, work with him if Maour requests it. That's all you can do.' Einfari rumbled consideringly. 'In the meantime… we should switch focus to Nóttreiði, and getting ready to carry out our mission.'

Killing Dagur. That, she could prepare for. As for Nóttreiði? Right now, his violent hatred looked less insurmountable than Nóttleiðtogi's issues. It was time to switch focus.

_**Author's Note: **_**In case anyone is wondering, this chapter was originally a short, 2,000 word scene with Togi just telling the story. When I came back around to it, I knew I needed to fix that, but it was a bit tricky to rewrite. What we have here is a very odd way of telling the story, one with multiple layers of abstraction. Togi tells the story from memory, and Heather imagines it from his perspective, filling in the blanks. This way I can make it interesting and not just an exposition dump… while also not bogging this book down with a mini-arc set in the past (which I could have done. I estimate Togi's story would take five chapters if I wanted to go from his actual perspective.)**

**As a side note, some of the dialogue probably feels pretty generic (specifically that of Togi's family in the first few scenes). That's actually intentional in this scene, because Togi isn't recounting every word said through memory, and Heather doesn't actually know most of the people involved. By that same margin, those who like to predict from the smallest details should be very wary of the sections in italics. What Heather imagines may not be everything, based solely on what Togi is saying. It also may not have the same tone as the actual event, or may be missing subtleties.**

**Basically, the narrator for those scenes is very unreliable in some ways. It was an interesting hybrid method of relaying information, one I very much doubt I'll find many chances to use.**


	9. Chapter 9

"Good morning, Nóttreiði," Heather greeted happily as she passed him on her way out of the cavern, forcing herself to sound genuine, and ignoring the fact that it was just after sundown, not morning. Maybe-

'Go drown in a waste pit.' Nóttreiði snarled viciously, ducking out of the cavern before Einfari could retaliate on Heather's behalf… or before Heather could strike back herself.

'So we can cross 'pleasant and happy' off the list of things to try,' Einfari remarked after a moment of silence. 'What's next?'

Heather shrugged, feeling not all that disappointed. "All-out cheerful and naive?" That one wasn't likely to work either, but after a week of these attempts at breaking the ice with Nóttreiði, she was willing to try almost anything, no matter how unlikely it was to work.

'How about flat-out guilt-tripping him?' Einfari warbled an invitation for Heather hop on her back. She took off toward the forest. 'Accuse him of plotting against you, and then break down crying about how he's so mean. Get Joy on your side.'

"Are you serious?" That was a really bad idea. "He'd see right through it. I'm not the crying type."

'How would he know that? He knows nothing of humans.' Einfari set her down by the pond and immediately leaped back into the sky. The conversation continued as if she hadn't even left.

"I don't think he's stupid, and he knows I don't cry about things," Heather countered. "It's been long enough that it will seem out of character."

'You assume he cares enough to notice,' Einfari objected. 'But it's probably not a good plan anyway. I don't know what else could work.'

"So stop thinking about it." Heather sat down to wait for Einfari. "Focus on something else for a while."

'Well… we do have an assassination to plot,' Einfari mused. 'And I'm not talking about my brother. What of that?'

Dagur. How had she so easily put her status as a wanted woman out of her mind? The one behind her persecution should not be so easily forgotten.

How? This was how. She turned in a slow circle, taking in the pond, the quiet forest, and the dark silhouettes in front of the grey clouds. She was not hunted here. Here was safe… for now.

Dagur still needed to die. She began a light jog in the small open space by the pond, resolving to begin working on her stamina as soon as possible.

"I need to get into shape," she relayed to Einfari. "To get good with a weapon. Well, better. I'm not bad with an ax."

'To hone a skill is never a bad thing,' Einfari said, as if quoting someone. 'What are your strengths?'

That was a fair question. 'I'm light, quick on my feet, and can think fast.' Her stamina, reflexes, and coordination were not good enough to brag about. Life on the run did not hone those things so much as wear them down.

'So work on those,' Einfari remarked, dropping down out of the clouds in a scarily steep dive, leveling out at the last moment to circle around and drop down by Heather. 'And build up your weaknesses. What are they?'

Heather's first instinct was to be offended… but what Maour had said about weaknesses stopped her. He hadn't been exaggerating. It really didn't even occur to Einfari that asking could be considered rude or insulting.

So… "I'm not strong, I get tired quickly, and I'm small compared to the average Viking," she admitted reluctantly. "I'm only passable with an ax, and not good at all with anything else."

Running, not fighting, was the only thing that worked for her. Fighting off one group of Berserkers would end with another taking her while she was tired from doing so. Maybe, if she had Einfari back then, and was able to easily get away after fighting, to hit and run… but hitting was almost always a bad choice, and she couldn't afford to make bad choices, so it was always running, hiding, avoiding…

'Heather.' Einfari tapped her shoulder with the tip of her tail. 'Heather.'

She blinked, shaking her head to brush away those memories. What was that? She didn't remember ever zoning out like that before any of this, but that was the second time since arriving here.

'Do you need to go see Eldurhjarta?' Einfari asked worriedly.

"No, I'm fine," Heather replied hesitantly. "I'm fine." She reached out and put her hand on Einfari's wing shoulder, acting without any real reason aside from that strange feeling that wasn't totally gone.

Einfari moved closer, staring at her. 'You do not sound fine.'

She was safe, here. Nobody knew she was here, nobody knew EInfari and the rest of the Nótts were here, they were all safe. "I really am fine."

'I don't believe that,' Einfari grumbled, 'but let's pretend you are. What's your excuse for trailing off and staring at nothing for so long?'

Surely it couldn't have been that long. "I got distracted."

'Sure. If it happens again I'm taking you to Eldurhjarta and forcing you to cooperate,' Einfari declared. 'No matter how "fine" you say you are. That is not normal.'

It wasn't normal. She didn't argue, because a part of her knew Einfari was right. "If. For now, I need to get better at fighting. Dagur won't go down easily if it comes to that."

Now, how to do that? She put her mind to the problem to push aside the odd feeling that had ambushed her. People often sparred, but surely there was some benefit to just practicing attacks. She didn't have a weapon, but last time she had fought she hadn't either...

Feeling only mildly stupid, Heather began jabbing at the air, trying to replicate what she had done on the ship to kill that unlucky guard. Maybe there was something to that-

Einfari whipped her tail in front of Heather, taking her latest strike full-on. Heather winced, surprised by actually hitting something, her hand stinging. "What is it?"

'If you want to fight, wouldn't a sparring partner be better?' Einfari sounded totally serious.

Heather laughed. "Fighting you might not help, and I don't want to do anything aggressive towards any Night Fury. Not the image I'm trying to convey. Nóttreiði might see that and use it as an excuse to kill me." That wasn't even an exaggeration. Heather totally believed Nóttreiði was capable of that. He had certainly overreacted to her and Nótthljóður playing around.

Einfari growled lightly. 'No he wouldn't. I wouldn't let him. But I wasn't suggesting we spar. That would be a bit unfair. I was thinking of Maour. Maybe the twins, but I don't know if I trust them to be careful.'

Heather was skeptical of that. "Does Maour even know how to fight? He doesn't seem like the violent type." She actually liked that, as it was so different from most Vikings.

Einfari grinned. 'He hates fighting.' She nudged Heather. 'But you should just go challenge him anyway. I want to watch.'

Heather was fine with having someone to spar, even if they would likely be horrible, as anyone who hates fighting would be. Besides, she still hadn't even met the other humans yet. She had enough issues to deal with as it was, and the island was big enough that she had never run into them by chance. "Do you know where he would be?"

'We can go looking. Don't you need a weapon? All the other humans use something.'

At that, she did need something. "Yes, actually. One for practice, anyway." She didn't even want to imagine what would happen if she brought a weapon into the Nótt caves.

'I know where you can get one.' Einfari let Heather on and took flight, aiming for the Svartur side of the mountain. 'We kept all the metal stuff from the Berserker ship.'

She was fine with that, as long as she could find one without a Berserker crest.

* * *

After selecting a weapon, finding Maour was actually easy. Within ten minutes of searching, Einfari spotted Toothless standing on the beach. He was panting and grinning.

Einfari landed next to him. 'What are you doing?'

Toothless barked happily. 'I just beat Maour in a race. He should be here any second now.' He was staring smugly into the forest edge.

Heather laughed. "Was that outcome ever really in question?" Maour was a human, and Toothless a Night Fury. One of them had a massive advantage, and she was pretty sure it wasn't Maour.

Toothless surprised her by shooting her a level stare. 'Yes. We're fairly equal in speed here. But he tripped up early on, which almost never happens, so I won this time.' He was cut off by the arrival of Maour.

Heather jumped in shock. Maour had been moving silently, and she hadn't heard him coming. And he had been moving really fast, faster than she would have thought possible in the dense undergrowth.

Maour slowed, breathing hard. "You got lucky." He kept walking, circling Toothless, who was purring smugly. "You know that, right?"

Toothless laughed. 'Yup. Still counts. Want a rematch?'

Maour fell to the sand overdramatically. "We just crossed the entire island. No way am I doing that again today." He sat up. "Heather, Einfari. What brings you two here? Toothless doesn't usually like spectators, in case he loses." He tossed a handful of sand at the dragon in question. "Which is most of the time. Regardless of whatever he's been telling you."

Toothless used his tail to lift a small mound of sand threateningly. 'Tell the truth.'

Maour scrambled away. "Fine, fine. We're about even on who wins these things. Right now, anyway."

"Actually, Einfari was telling me that if I wanted a sparring partner, I should ask you." She personally thought now wasn't the greatest time, given Maour had apparently been running, but it was why they had come.

Maour squinted at her. "Really. Well, I can spar with you. Did she say anything else?" He seemed curious.

Einfari purred. 'I just told her you hate fighting, but you can.'

Toothless chuckled. 'True enough. This should be entertaining.' He backed away a few steps and sat down. Einfari sat next to him, leaving Maour and Heather most of the beach.

Maour looked at them. "Great. Thanks for the support buddy, I'll take it from here." He sounded sarcastic. He turned to Heather. "Do you even have a weapon?"

Heather brought her borrowed weapon into view, a simple, unmarked, single-bladed ax. "Do you?"

"Toothless?" He held out a hand, not even looking at his dragon.

Toothless dragged something off of his saddle, twisting awkwardly to grasp it. 'You're lucky I brought it for you.' He carefully tossed it over with his head, and Maour caught it without even looking.

Heather blinked. It was the same oddly shaped polearm she had seen the first day. The one she had been sure wasn't a-

Maour spun the pole around and abruptly stopped it. Two wicked-looking spikes detached from the far sides of the pole and snapped up, forming right angles to the actual polearm. He grinned.

Now it looked like a weapon. A very dangerous weapon, bladed and spiked at both ends, in opposite directions. She took a step back. "For someone who hates fighting, you sure have a funny way of showing it."

Maour spun the polearm idly. "I hate fighting. But I have to be as good as possible because it isn't always avoidable. I can talk, I can run, I can hide, and I can think. But if all those fail, or aren't an option, I can fight." He grinned sarcastically, speeding up the spinning circle in his hands in front of him. "And with this, I can fight like a Night Fury would. Fast, intelligent, deadly, even ruthless if needed. Minus the plasma blasts and wings, for now. I'm working on wings, and fire is next in line."

Heather really wasn't sure if he was serious. "Really?"

Toothless chuffed. 'Yup. Those wings are a deathtrap though. Totally not ready yet."

Maour nodded. "I thought that my arms were long enough. But I have a way to fix that."

Toothless groaned, slumping dramatically. 'Great, more chances to randomly plummet because your wings break. You're lucky Von likes helping out with these tests, or I wouldn't let you do them. Von as a safety net makes it just safe enough.'

Heather gestured to Maour's spinning polearm with her ax. "Well? Is that all you can do?" She stood in a ready position, ax raised in anticipation.

Maour adopted a look of concentration. "Not even close. I'll go all out the first time, so you can get the full measure." He held the polearm at a strange angle, slanted across his body, with the top spike pointed away, and the bottom point behind him, out to the side.

Heather struck first, swinging the ax at his side. As expected, he blocked it with the haft of his weapon. She didn't expect him to stop and step away. "What are you doing?"

He frowned at her question. "You would have died if that was real. The top spike was two inches from your head, and nothing was stopping me from pushing further."

Heather replayed what had just happened. She had swung her ax... and he had twisted the pole as he moved to block, angling the top spike towards where she had moved. She shivered. He was right, that would have been the end of her in a real fight. She stepped forward. "Let's try this again..."

Six very short matches later, Heather was frustrated beyond words. Well, almost beyond words. "I hate that thing." She dropped her ax and sat down. "Are you still going all-out?" She honestly couldn't tell. He had 'killed' her every single time, usually within five or six frantic moves on her part. She was no prodigy with an ax, but she had thought she was at least decent.

This was embarrassing. She glared at Einfari. "You really set me up. 'doesn't like fighting' you said, leaving out 'really good with a foreign weapon no one else uses'."

Einfari nodded. 'I figured you could use something to test yourself again. And don't worry, I saw him take on Fishlegs, Ruffnut, and Tuffnut and win. At the same time.'

Toothless laughed. 'Five years of practice, and a weapon that favors speed and intelligence. It helps that no one knows how to defend against it. Also, those three are not the most dangerous of foes.'

Maour offered Heather his hand, like that first day on the beach. This time she took it out of gratitude, not necessity.

Maour smiled, his voice humble. "It really did take five years, and I can still be beaten, I'm sure." He gestured to Heather's ax. "Those really aren't much good against me. Too little range and no protection. The only thing worse is a hammer."

Heather smiled. "So I should bring a bow next time?" She wasn't sure what kind of weapon she would use, if not an ax. Not... "What is that thing called anyway?"

"A Scythe. It's named after the farming tool that it vaguely resembles in form."

Heather considered it. "I wouldn't want to use one of those. The spikes seem really tricky to maneuver without stabbing yourself. But the two sharp ends..."

Toothless perked up at the same time Maour did. Toothless spoke first. 'What about something new?' He sounded excited.

Maour laughed at his brother. "Thinking the same thing I am?"

Toothless deflated slightly. 'That we can make something for Heather? Yeah, but I have no idea what.'

Heather felt she had to intervene. "Guys, I'm really only comfortable with axes. One, maybe two if they're light."

Maour didn't seem deterred. "Well, what if we made you something that worked with that? You wouldn't have to use it, we'd do it for fun anyway. Always love a new project." He looked over at Toothless. "Wanna try?"

Toothless nodded. 'Definitely.'

Einfari laughed. 'Don't bother stopping them. I've seen some of Maour's flight tests recently. If those horrific catastrophes can't stop him, nothing can.' Then she took a look at Heather, who was still annoyed. 'Maybe we can do something else?'

Heather shrugged. "This isn't really much help anyway. Berserkers aren't going to be using those things." She pointed at Maour's scythe. "I assume no one else has one."

Maour frowned at that. "You realize if everything goes to plan you won't have to fight any Berserkers, right? We're going to find out why Dagur is sending his people after you, and..." He trailed off. Eventually, he continued. "Well, we'll have to wing it from there, because we don't know why."

Heather laughed darkly. "Or, I could just kill him. It doesn't matter why, that would stop him." She saw Einfari nod.

Maour stared at her. "Violence shouldn't be the first choice here."

Heather turned away, not meeting Maour's eyes. "Tell that to Dagur. But it's a bit too late."

Maour frowned. "I understand that, but..." He moved around and met her eyes again. "At least promise me you won't go at Dagur without a plan. You can't avenge your family if he kills you first."

Heather didn't say anything. Then she relented. "Fine. I promise, not without a plan." She could make a plan right now. Catch Dagur alone, and kill him. There. Plan created, promise kept.

* * *

The weeks passed, and by reasonable estimation, the Berserker ship was about three, maybe four weeks out from Berserker island. They were going to have to leave soon, though Maour had not told them exactly when yet.

'What are we doing, again?' Einfari was as confused as Heather was this time around. They were sitting, or in Einfari's case, lying on a ledge by the far wall of the main Nótt cave.

'Waiting for your father and siblings,' Skarpur replied serenely. 'This is important. We need to discuss your upcoming journey.'

'But do we really have to do this?' Einfari asked impatiently. 'Heather needs to go with Maour and Toothless, and I'm taking her.'

'Neither of you are going anywhere,' Nóttleiðtogi announced as he entered the cave, Nóttreiði and Nótthljóður trailing behind him. 'Not before proving to me you are ready for anything.'

That was new. "How are we supposed to do that?" Heather asked, making an effort to sound respectful. She was not going to insult Nóttleiðtogi again, even by accident.

'You aren't going to do anything,' Nóttreiði snarled, glaring at her as he took a spot by the exit, looking like a particularly dangerous and bored guard. The image was almost immediately spoiled by Nótthljóður curling up by his feet, purring sleepily.

Skarpur went to stand by her mate. 'Relax, son. This _is _to test both of them.'

'And if we want to be done any time soon, we should begin,' Nóttleiðtogi agreed. He made a strange, half-hearted jerking motion, looking distinctly uncomfortable, before lying down facing Heather.

What in the world had that been? It almost looked like he was-

Right. He had probably intended to sit on his hind legs, voluntarily baring his scarred underside as he was among family, but then remembered she was here and changed his mind. That made her feel guilty even though she couldn't help it.

'Daughter… and Heather,' Nóttleiðtogi said formally. 'You propose a trip. Explain.'

Hadn't they done this in the big pack meeting a while back? Maybe Nóttleiðtogi just wanted it to be clear.

'Our goals are twofold,' Einfari began, clearly trying to mimic her father's formality, with some success. 'The first goal does not involve Heather or me. Maour needs information from his informant on Berk. That is his business, not ours. The second involves us, because it involves Heather. We need to get the Berserkers to stop hunting her.'

'Why?' Nóttleiðtogi grunted, breaking his formality for a moment. 'I know why, but I want to hear how you see it. Heather, if you would answer this one?'

This really did feel like a test, and of more than her knowledge of the current situation. It was a test of tactics, really. "This island needs to remain unnoticed and unoccupied by outsiders. When the Berserker ship on which I was held prisoner returns home, Dagur will no doubt hear that I was lost on this island. We do not want him directing his attention and fleets to this area."

'And what of sinking the ship before he finds out? We did not. Why?' Skarpur asked.

What had Maour said? "If we did that, the other Berserkers would search this area anyway, for their missing ship. We don't want them here at all."

'Correct,' Nóttleiðtogi remarked. 'Now, Einfari. What is the proposed solution?'

'We will travel to Berserker island,' Einfari recounted, laying out the plan that had apparently been discussed at some point before Heather could hear all dragons, given Einfari had told her of it later. 'There, Maour will deliver a message to Dagur, telling him to meet on a certain island we pick out beforehand. We will get there before Dagur, of course, so he won't be able to set up anything in advance.''

'And what will the message say?' Nóttleiðtogi, directed at Heather. Was all of this really necessary?

Who cared? Nóttleiðtogi was being fair, asking both of them. Him including her at all was a step in the right direction. "It will tell Dagur the rumored dragon rider has me, and willing to negotiate a ransom at the specified time and place."

'And? I was there when Maour proposed this, there's one more important thing,' Skarpur warbled.

Einfari rumbled uncertainly. 'I know there is, but I don't remember…'

'Misdirection,' Nóttreiði called out. 'He'll call this place "a worthless stopover" in order to convince the other human that it was coincidence he was here.'

'Correct, son, but I was not testing you,' Nóttleiðtogi growled. 'Unless you also wish to go, let them answer.'

'Maybe I do,' Nóttreiði retorted. 'Actually, yes, I do.'

Einfari blinked, her eyes narrowing. 'Why in the world would you go? You hate Heather.'

'Exactly,' Nóttreiði snarled. 'This is a chance for her to betray you. And when she does, I'll kill her.'

'Nóttreiði!' Skarpur snapped. 'What did I tell you?'

'Keep my vileness to myself or be rid of it entirely,' Nóttreiði replied seriously. 'But this is common sense. Here, the human has no chance of succeeding in any plot. Out there, Einfari will be vulnerable. I'm going to keep her safe.'

'You act like I can't keep myself safe,' Einfari retorted angrily. 'Which of us actually knows how to fight?'

Heather winced. That felt like a line that shouldn't have been crossed.

'You know _how_,' Nóttreiði snarled. 'But will you, if it betrays you? You'll hesitate because you like it. That will get you hurt. I have no such weakness.'

'I would _hope,_' Skarpur interjected with a loud bark, 'that neither of you would kill her, given it is our _standing rule _that she be captured if she betrays us.' That was aimed at Nóttreiði.

'And that neither of you would hesitate to capture her and bring her back to be dealt with,' Nóttleiðtogi added, looking at Einfari. 'If she did betray you, I would expect no lenience.'

Balance. Skarpur tempered Nóttreiði's blind hatred, and Nóttleiðtogi strengthened Einfari's resolve to do whatever needed to be done. Heather did not think the latter was necessary, but by both being chastised, both were defused.

Given how manipulative everyone involved was, Heather was pretty sure they all saw it and chose to let it work rather than continue striking at each other. They consciously decided to respond as they would if they were unaware.

'I still want to go.' Nóttreiði said a bit less aggressively. 'Is there a good reason, father, that I should not?'

Nóttleiðtogi shook his head. 'There is only your hatred of humans. You will be traveling with two, and this is Maour's mission. He will be in charge.'

Nóttreiði flinched at that.

'And you know that a leader who cannot expect his followers to follow is not capable of leading,' Nóttleiðtogi continued. 'I will not sabotage Maour by sending you if you will not listen to him.'

'I will… I will listen to Toothless,' Nóttreiði argued back. 'I don't like him either, but I can follow him. He and Maour are practically joined at the wing, so that is good enough.'

'No, it's not.' Skarpur sighed sadly. 'Son, can you not put aside your hatred of humans for Maour? We _know _beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is one of us.'

'No. They're all bad.' Nóttreiði shook his head in denial. 'He is still one of them.'

'That is a pointless argument, Nóttreiði.' Einfari growled at her brother. 'You hate without discrimination. How is that smart?'

'I still want to go. I will obey Toothless if I must. That is enough,' Nóttreiði stubbornly repeated.

'No.' There was weight to Nóttleiðtogi's voice, now, of a verdict being laid down. 'You will join their mission only if you will agree to obey Maour until you all return, no matter what he says. Otherwise, you will not leave this island.'

'That's not fair!' Nóttreiði complained, sounding quite immature and more than a little hurt.

'And since when is anything fair, son?' Nóttleiðtogi growled in response. 'You are a danger to the success of this mission, so unless you fix that you are going nowhere.'

And he wasn't going to do that. Nóttleiðtogi had just ensured Nóttreiði wasn't coming along. Good. She wasn't particularly sorry he wouldn't be there, snarling and threatening-

'I swear.'

What?

'What?' Einfari barked, echoing Heather's mental question.

'I swear… to obey Maour's orders… for the duration of our trip,' Nóttreiði gritted out, his eyes locked on his father. 'Because apparently you trust him more than you trust me.'

Nóttleiðtogi flinched at that. 'In dealing with humans? Maour does not attack unprovoked at the very least.'

'No. In everything,' Nóttreiði corrected, standing angrily but making sure not to disturb his little sister. 'You told me to obey him in all things, not just in dealing with humans. Thank you for making it clear what you think of me. I am less deserving of your confidence than a human.'

Ouch. Heather was distinctly aware of just how personal all of this had become, how hurtful. It was no longer a group discussion. This was between father and son, and the rest of them were not to interfere, no matter how much Skarpur looked like she wanted to.

'Twist my words if you like, son,' Nóttleiðtogi sighed. 'There may even be some truth to your twisting. He has worked for years to earn what I did not have to give. You take it for granted. I wish I could trust you more than I trust him, but I cannot. Not when you hold to blind hatred.'

'I learned from you what humans are,' Nóttreiði countered. 'I know what they did.'

'And that is still all you know?' That was followed by a questioning warble. 'Does the fact that some live among us, and have for years, not bear consideration?'

'No. They are just biding their time. You wait. The one you trust will kill you in your sleep one day, and the rest of us will mourn you,' Nóttreiði snarled. 'You're supposed to be the one who keeps us safe, but you let them get closer and closer. You let one in our home!' He jerked his head in Heather's direction. 'I'm the only one left who is even _trying _to keep us safe! You don't trust me? I can't trust you anymore!'

A moment of silence.

'I understand.' Nóttleiðtogi stood, facing his son directly. 'You are aware dragons are just as bad as humans, right?'

'They do not hunt-'

Nóttleiðtogi cut him off almost immediately. 'Skrill.'

'What?'

'Skrill hunt us. Skrill attack on sight. They lurk in thunderstorms, moving with the weather, just _waiting _for one of us to get careless. One almost killed Svarturkló and drove her far enough away from here to end up in the grasp of another dragon, one even worse than any human alive. Dragons are just as bad, if not worse, than humans.'

'Those are Skrill and whatever that large one was,' Nóttreiði countered. 'You cannot say all dragons are bad…' He trailed off, growing softly.

'No.' Nóttleiðtogi moved even closer, staring into his son's eyes. 'Finish what you intended to say, as you intended it, no alteration.'

'No. I-'

'_Say it_,' Nóttleiðtogi snarled. 'None of my children get to hide from truth. _I will not let you._'

There was such intensity to that last statement, it felt like the world was holding its breath. The cave seemed a tiny bit brighter, as if…

Odd…

It actually was slightly brighter in here. In a place where only the moss should provide any illumination. Where was that light coming from?

Nóttleiðtogi. It was coming from him, seeping out from between his scales. A faint, almost unnoticeable glow that did not even have a color, it was so weak. Did anyone else notice it? Probably not. They could see perfectly fine in here, and would not notice a minute change in lighting. Only Heather, with her imperfect, still-developing sight in the dark, could see it.

There was no chance she was going to break the power of whatever Nóttleiðtogi was doing to point it out right now. She remained silent, one of the three spectators watching and waiting for the moment to pass.

'You cannot say all dragons are bad… based on the actions of some,' Nóttreiði admitted softly. 'Our kind is not bad. Just because others are does not mean we are by association.'

Nóttleiðtogi commanded, 'Repeat that, but replace the word "dragon" with "human, and "our kind" with "our humans".'

'You cannot say all humans are bad based on the actions of some. Our humans are not bad. Just because others are does not mean they are by association.' He didn't sound like he believed it at all, a deep snarl lingering in the back of his throat as he spoke.

Nóttleiðtogi took a step back, and some of the weight in the air lifted, the glow only Heather could see gone as if it had never existed. 'Until you believe that, I cannot trust you. You know the truth and ignore it. That is not trustworthy.'

'It's not the same thing,' Nóttreiði muttered rebelliously, sounding unsettled. No surprise there. Being the subject of whatever that was would unsettle anyone.

'There is no more _I _can do to help you,' Nóttleiðtogi concluded. 'Hopefully, this trip will allow you to believe that truth. When you do, I will know you have earned my trust.'

'And if you are wrong?' Nóttreiði asked plaintively. 'I must believe a falsehood to be trusted?'

'I am not wrong.' Nóttleiðtogi purred reassuringly. 'Rather, I corrected a falsehood in my thinking. I cannot blame you too much for clinging to that same falsehood. It is seductively simple, and depicts us as the ones in the right no matter what, giving us a clear, defined enemy who embodies all that is bad.'

'Whatever,' Nóttreiði muttered. 'I swore. So I can go?'

'Yes,' Nóttleiðtogi agreed, letting the topic shift, 'you can go, assuming Maour allows it. I will talk to him about it to ensure he does, and to also ensure he knows what you swore.'

Nóttreiði accepted that without complaint. He had known what he was agreeing to in swearing, and it was obvious Maour would have to know why he would even want to consider letting Nóttreiði come along.

'And since you are going,' Skarpur added with an overly cheery voice, 'we get to test you too!'

They weren't done with that? Then again, Nóttreiði had interrupted it.

'Fine,' Nóttreiði grumbled, sitting back down. 'Make it quick.'

'Watch your tone, son,' Skarpur shot back. 'Else I might drag this out intentionally.'

Were they really going to try to go back to how it had been before that huge argument? Heather didn't see how they could do that, Skarpur's attempts at lightening the mood notwithstanding. Were they supposed to pretend that hadn't just happened?

'Heather,' Skarpur began, her voice overly cheery, 'I am going to give you a hypothetical situation. No matter how crazy or unlikely, I want you to answer as best you can with what you think would be the best possible reaction.'

'This will be fun,' Einfari purred happily. 'We play this game every once in a while.'

What? "You guys quiz each other on strategy in made-up situations for fun?"

'Yes. Even Joy plays when she can.' Einfari eyed the fledgling in question, who was somehow still asleep. 'Probably not this time.'

Well… for this particular group of people, maybe it wasn't so strange that they would find such a thing fun. "Okay. Any other rules to this?"

'We're all allowed to follow up on what you say,' Skarpur added, 'but only once per dragon, to prevent nitpicking every detail. You have to answer those as well. Then we would vote on whether the plan is good, but this time around we're not actually playing the game for fun, so Togi and I will decide.'

"Got it. What's the situation?" She could do this, though she might not be as good as any of them. At least it had rules, which really didn't surprise her, given who usually participated.

'I'll start you off with an easy one,' Skarpur purred. 'Let us assume you, Einfari, Nóttreiði, Maour, and Toothless successfully deliver the message and reach the island with a day to spare. We will also assume that there is nothing else around, and that the island is a flat, open plain no larger than a thirty second run from one edge to the other. What is the best possible way to prepare for the meeting?'

That wasn't actually that easy… Heather spoke as she thought, letting them hear what was going through her mind. "No cover, and Dagur could bring others with ranged weapons… am I allowed to specify things beforehand?"

'Like what?' Skarpur warbled.

"I was thinking of changing what was in the letter a bit," Heather admitted. "Though that might be cheating."

'That's acceptable,' Nóttleiðtogi answered.

"Okay… then I'd specify in the letter that only Dagur is to set foot on the island," she decided. "On his honor. Viking chiefs have to hold to honor if they want to be respected. Otherwise, they end up like Alvin the Treacherous. He'd hold to that."

'Is that all you would do?' Nóttleiðtogi asked carefully.

"No way, that's just the start," Heather replied confidently, beginning to enjoy the problem. "It's a flat plain… grassy, I assume, but not so high as to conceal vision. We have a day?"

'Yes. Stop stalling,' Nóttreiði growled. Einfari growled right back at him on Heather's behalf.

"I'd have us dig holes, ones big enough to hide a Fury in," Heather decided. "We'd tear up strips of the sod in preparation. Then, one of the dragons would watch the ocean. The moment his ship shows up, all three dragons would sit in the holes, and the humans would cover them with grass. Einfari and Toothless would watch from the humans' senses as the meeting goes down. If things get hostile, all three emerge and annihilate Dagur, or take us and flee, depending on how it goes." She had gotten the idea from one of Maour's stories in which he buried Toothless and Cloey in sand. It was the only effective way to hide when there was no cover whatsoever. Except maybe flying so high they couldn't be seen, but that would be a bad idea for long lengths of time, because flying took energy. Hiding did not.

'Okay… my question is, what do you do if Dagur requests proof Maour is the dragon rider?' Skarpur warbled questioningly. 'Having one of the dragons come up to be seen would spoil the element of surprise.'

"Easy. He's wearing armor covered in Night Fury scales. All he has to do is point that out."

Nóttleiðtogi huffed. 'My question. What if they don't believe him? Black scales are not impossible to fake, and only one who has seen us would recognize them.'

That was a bit harder… but maybe it didn't matter. "The thing is, the Berserkers all recognized me on sight, somehow. I assume they have my description. I'm all the proof Maour actually needs."

'True,' Nóttleiðtogi admitted with a begrudgingly approving purr. 'Good reasoning.'

'My turn,' Einfari said eagerly. 'What do you do if Dagur steps on one of the hidden Furies and notices something is strange?'

That was really easy. "The second that happens, said Fury should leap up and tear him apart. Problem solved."

'For you, maybe, though Maour might object to that, as he does not like killing,' Skarpur supplied. 'That is not within the limits of this question, though. Unless you want to ask about that, Nóttreiði?'

'No. I have a better question.' Nóttreiði made sure to glare at Heather as he spoke. 'What will you do if Maour sells you out and joins the Berserkers?'

Heather stared at him blankly for the time it took that to sink in. Einfari, quicker on the uptake, began rumbling in amusement.

Then she began to laugh, because the idea really was, by all she knew, ridiculous. The fact that Nóttleiðtogi of all dragons was also chuckling quietly proved that. If that sombre dragon laughed, it really was hilarious.

'You all laugh _now,_' Nóttreiði complained, looking a little embarrassed, 'but it might happen!'

'And Joy might grow an extra set of wings behind her ears,' Einfari warbled sarcastically, slapping her tail on the stone floor in amusement. 'Ask something less insane. And less insulting.'

'No, Einfari, he can ask that,' Skarpur interjected. 'However poor taste it may be in, it is a valid hypothetical. We do not deal in "why" in these scenarios, or how likely they are.'

'So answer it, if you can,' Nóttreiði concluded smugly, getting a bit of his pride back, as everyone was no longer laughing.

It was a challenge, too. Nóttreiði wanted to see her fail. That was clear from the way he was glaring at her.

Not happening. "Am I to assume Toothless is as shocked by this impossibility as the rest of us are?" she asked seriously.

'Sure,' Nóttreiði purred viciously.

"And I am to assume you, in this scenario, are _aching _for any excuse to kill humans," she continued, not phrasing it as a question. "I can work with that. At what point do we find out he has betrayed us for sure?"

'Say… he gives you to them freely, and points out somebody's hiding place, saying that they can take some Night Furies prisoner, dead or alive,' Nóttreiði specified, speaking with more than a hint of malice. Not the worst possible scenario, but bad nonetheless.

This was difficult… but not impossible. "Whichever Fury he points out must stay motionless, because all attention will be on them. The other two need to immediately attack, killing the Berserkers and capturing Maour, knocking him out as soon as possible."

'Why not kill him?' Nóttreiði asked, breaking the rules. No one stopped him.

"Toothless," Heather countered smoothly. "No matter how betrayed he might feel in the moment, he won't let Maour be killed. By knocking Maour out and not letting Toothless rebuild the link, we hinder any possible persuasion from Maour's side. Toothless will still understand him, but Maour won't hear any of the dragons talking. I'd be in charge of making sure he doesn't talk his way out of any of this on the way back to this island."

'And how did you plan to get back?' Skarpur asked, genuinely interested despite herself. 'Toothless and Maour fly as one.'

"I'd break my link with Einfari, _temporarily, _and establish one with Toothless. Maour uses the feeling from the link to operate the tail. A few days of practice and I'd be passable. We could get back like that, and then we would figure something out." She really didn't want to try and map out how to help Toothless if Maour was executed for treachery, which was the implied punishment. He would somehow need to be able to fly… and she didn't want to drop Einfari for him.

'That is far more than enough, Heather,' Nóttleiðtogi intervened, staring at her with something akin to respect. 'And quite a comprehensive plan for such a difficult problem, all in all. I say it is good.'

'As do I,' Skarpur agreed. 'Who wants to be next, Einfari or Nóttreiði?' She was doing her best to move it along.

'I'll go next,' Einfari volunteered. 'What's my situation?'

'Something different,' Nóttleiðtogi began. 'Let us assume that Maour and Toothless will go in to drop the letter alone, with the rest of you waiting above, watching. What if they are captured?'

'That depends,' Einfari began without hesitation, 'on the place they are caught. If it is a small, confined space, I would call for Toothless to cover Maour and blast all around them. If it was an open area with many enemies, we would wait until either it became necessary to risk intervening, or until they are locked up and left alone, or close to it. We would not let ourselves be seen unless absolutely necessary.'

'What makes this more logical than leaving them?' Nóttreiði asked, sounding much more respectful when talking to his sister.

'You would leave a fellow Night Fury to captivity or death?' Einfari asked seriously. 'To be studied, examined, our appearance and capabilities revealed? Putting aside how horrible a person I would have to be to leave them, that is a terrible blow to our species as a whole. It is best they know as little as possible.'

'A good point. But what do you do if they're prepared for an attack from the sky?' Skarpur inquired, moving things along, away from her son's pointed questions.

'Wait. As long as neither of them are going to be killed immediately, we can wait.'

'And if they are going to be killed immediately?' Nóttleiðtogi followed up.

'We risk it. Drop from the sky and let Nóttreiði act out his wildest dreams,' Einfari said sarcastically. 'I'm sure that will work out well.'

Einfari's parents let that one pass without comment.

'Risky, but there were not many options,' Skarpur decided. 'Perhaps, in that case, the best defense is to be sure it does not get to that point.'

'Agreed. Now, son.' Nóttleiðtogi spoke neutrally. 'My question for you is a bit different. Suppose you are alone, for the moment, in hostile territory. A human approaches from your right. They have no visible weapon, and are not acting hostile, moving slowly. What do you do?'

'That is a trick question,' Nóttreiði complained. 'I would kill it, but you would have me say to wait and see.'

'No,' Nóttleiðtogi abruptly snarled, 'I would have you flee. You are in enemy territory and one is clearly stalling. Why would you risk yourself?'

'Every one I kill is one less to endanger any dragon in the future,' Nóttreiði argued back, though he seemed to understand his answer wasn't a good one.

Heather had to interject, no matter how badly her words might be taken. "That's pointless. You're worth more than any random soldier ever would be."

'She's right,' Skarpur agreed, staring at her son. 'Do you really think any of us would consider your life for one random, unimportant human a fair trade? If you want to protect your family, you are not going about it very well in this scenario.'

'It would not be one,' Nóttreiði objected. 'I would win, and kill more…'

'So, how many humans are we supposed to consider a fair trade for your life?' Einfari asked. 'Twenty? Fifty? It will never be an acceptable trade for us.'

Heather really hoped she wasn't brought into this. She could see plenty of ways Nóttreiði could twist this around to be a 'him or her' question, one she was pretty sure she knew how they would all answer. She was a human who was living with them. He was family. They would pick him over her if there were no other options.

'That is your question,' Nóttreiði rumbled. 'That is all questions, by my count.'

"I get a question," Heather objected.

'I will not answer _you_,' Nóttreiði growled.

"Then I'll ask Nóttleiðtogi," she shot back. She had something in particular she wanted answered… "Nóttleiðtogi, what happens if, say, Einfari and Nóttreiði return, and it turns out Nóttreiði killed Maour or me unprovoked?"

'Nothing-' Nóttreiði began, but he was cut off by his father's deeply angry growl.

'An attempt was almost met with banishment,' Nóttleiðtogi remarked dangerously. 'A truly unprovoked murder? I would not be able to stop exile, and Nóttreiði would be _lucky _to not be punished further, especially if it was Maour. Skuggi and Svarturkló would call for his blood in retribution. Depending on just how deeply hurt they are by it, they might even hunt him down once he was exiled and out of our control.'

'You would let them-' Nóttreiði objected.

'I would be hard-pressed to stop them, son, and might just consider maintaining my friendship with them more important than trying and failing to protecting a murderer. It would be justice, nothing more.'

That had to hurt, though Heather saw the reasoning behind it.

'It would not be unprovoked,' Nóttreiði muttered after a moment. 'There. _Now _all the questions have been asked. I am done talking about this.'

'And I do not judge your plan at all good,' Skarpur countered. 'Why should we let you go, if you decide things like this? You would not come back.'

'I don't see why what _I _think matters in this case, given I will not be allowed to plan anything on this trip.'

'That is why I arranged as such, son. You can go.' Nóttleiðtogi sighed, looking old and tired. 'We are done here. Einfari and Heather have passed, and you are correct in that whether or not you pass does not matter here. I will go find Maour and speak to him now.' He nodded to Nóttreiði. 'And you will come with me. Let's go.'

The two males left the cavern, Nóttreiði sullenly trailing behind his father.

'That was awful,' Einfari remarked to no one in particular.

'Which part?' Skarpur asked sarcastically. 'The only fun part of any of that was finding out that Heather really is one of us. I had wanted this to be an enjoyable game as well as a test.'

'We tried to keep it that way,' Einfari agreed. 'But _some people _wanted to make their point over and over again.'

'That, I think, was a result of Togi forcing him into a corner. He needed to reassure himself.' Skarpur shook her head sadly. 'You two need to watch him on this trip. I don't know what he's going to end up doing if certain situations arise.'

That was ominous. Hopefully, such situations wouldn't be an issue.

_**Author's Note: **_**A reader requested a family tree of some sort last chapter, and I decided to oblige them. They've seen it by now, but here it is for anyone else who wants to see:**

**FAMILY TREE:**

**Note: As of now, we do not know any of generation 0 (the parents of those who are parents now), aside from Myrkureyðileggingu. Each individual generation-1 dragon knows their own parents, but that information may or may not be widely known, and is generally not important (I don't even have names for all of those ancestor dragons, to make it clear how unimportant they are).**

**So, I will sort by family:**

**Eldur: Eldurfjall is the Patriarch, and Eldurský is the Matriarch (leading male and female, for any who do not know what those words mean). They have four children. Eldurvatn (M), is their oldest, and was the first egg laid to any of the families. Then came Eldurhjarta (F), and Eldurberg (M) each about four years after the previous hatched. Eldurmælikvarða (F) is the newest Eldur, hatched less than a year ago as of this chapter.**

**Myrkur: Of special mention are the two Myrkurs who did not descend from the Matriarch and Patriarch. Myrkureyðileggingu is the only generation-0 dragon in the pack, and seems to enjoy not being in charge, so he is not the Patriarch. His son, Myrkurheili, is also there (we have not yet heard how that is, given Myrkurheili was not with the rest of them in Togi's recounting of the past).**

**Myrkureyðileggingu's younger daughter, Myrkurhryðjuverk, is the Matriarch of the Myrkurs, and her mate Myrkurljós is the Patriarch. They have three children, Myrkursprenging (M), Myrkursprengja (F) and Myrkurvængur (M), all in the 'teenage' years of development.**

**Svartur: The Svartur family is led by Svarturskuggi and Svarturkló. Their daughter Svarturvon is as of now twenty-three, and their son Svarturkappi is twenty. Svarturflugmaður, their adopted son, is also about twenty as of this chapter, though it is unclear which of the two brothers is actually older. They are the smallest family if adopted children are not considered, and it seems bad luck is preventing that from changing.**

**Nótt: The Nótt family is led by Nóttskarpur, the Matriarch, and Nóttleiðtogi, the Patriarch. They have three children. Nóttreiði (M) is the oldest, followed by Nótteinfari (F) and Nótthljóður (F), who is still a fledgling under the age of twelve (she'll get her fire at around that age). It has been said that they may attempt to add to their ranks once Nótthljóður is twelve and does not need to be consistently cared for as fledglings do.**

**... Wow, that was longer than I thought it would be.**


	10. Chapter 10

Dragons rarely fell ill. Thus, Cloey's strangely persistent mystery illness was a chance for Maour to learn a few new things, like it or not.

For instance, as it turned out, moss was not washable. A second bout of nausea, in which Cloey hadn't made it outside in time, had proven that quite conclusively. Toothless and Von ended up having to burn out the majority of the moss in the central cavern for Maour to sweep out, much to the disgust of everyone involved. It smelled even worse than before by the end of that particularly disgusting job. The worst part, however, was not the immediate smell, but what came the night after.

"Why didn't we sleep outside?" Maour muttered, stumbling out of the cavern in search of water. He could almost taste the pungent stench. The worst part was that they _had _decided to sleep outside a few weeks ago when the first round of moss-burning had occurred. How had all five of them forgotten that the scent lingered?

The closest source of drinkable water was the forge, where he kept several canteens. He made his way there, breathing deeply in an effort to smell anything other than that lingering scent of char and bile.

By the time he had washed that taste out of his mouth, he was fully awake. Toothless, on the other hand, was not, and Maour didn't feel like waking him. Let him sleep.

In the meantime, Maour's options were limited. He didn't feel particularly hungry, and Von or Shadow would be happy to take him fishing later, so food wasn't an issue. His daily run and weapons training was something he did with Toothless, so that could wait…

Well, he was at the forge already. He moved over to one of the tables, the one that held the wingsuit.

That needed to be tested. The latest version was ready. Nothing could be done there. His other projects all needed attention, but none of them felt important at the moment.

He and Toothless were planning to design some new weapon for Heather, and he could at least start thinking about it now.

He pulled out a crate of parchment from under a low stone overhang in the back of the forge, sifting through his designs to find a blank piece of parchment and a charcoal pencil.

She had liked how his scythe was double-ended, but not the spikes or how easy it would be to injure oneself while using it. She had also said she preferred axes, like-

Like Astrid, but that wasn't a fair comparison. He _hoped _that wasn't a fair comparison. Togi was extending all the trust he could manage, and for Heather to break that would be a terrible setback, not even considering what such a betrayal might do to Einfari. And all of that was ignoring just how bad it could be for everyone if Heather was bad at heart.

If Heather betrayed them, trauma and setbacks in Togi's therapy would be the least of their problems, but that was one reason why she was with the Nótts. If they couldn't catch her in time, there was no way anyone else would have been able to do any better.

It was helpful, if possibly narrow-minded, to see it that way. The Nótts were all things tactics and caution, the Eldurs knowledge, and the Myrkurs action. The Svarturs…

Maour had a set of traits for his family too, but they might be biased. Empathy, cooperation, intelligence in a more general way compared to the Eldurs or Nótts, but most importantly, leadership. They were the first family to take in a human, as the most obvious example, but were a strong voice in any pack decision, right next to the Nótts, a lighter but cautious counterpart to their cynicism.

The thing was, that way of thinking also had a downside built in. Each group had an associated weakness, too. The Nótts fell far too easily into paranoia and could be ruthless, while the Eldurs were far too often oblivious to the practical aspect of any given situation. The Myrkurs went with the flow, letting others make the difficult decisions for them.

And the Svarturs…

He wasn't sure what his family's weakness was in this way of looking at it. There would be one, because nobody was perfect, but he couldn't figure it out and didn't really want to. People were too unique for it to be very useful anyway. Nótthljóður was not ruthless or paranoid, for instance, despite being of the family associated with those traits. Maybe she would grow into that role.

'I feel sick,' a familiar voice grumbled. It seemed Toothless was awake.

"Sick as in disgusted by the smell, or actually sick like Mom?" Maour asked, just to be sure.

'The smell. Where are you?'

"Did you really think I would hang around in there?" Maour felt Toothless access his sight as he spoke. "The forge. I'm thinking we can-"

'Start a big project that will eat up all of the free time we might spend in the cavern?' Toothless cut in quickly. 'Good idea. Let me go make sure Von or Shadow will be helping Mom today.'

"She's probably still asleep," Maour noted. "But yeah, someone needs to be around at all times." He might have felt more guilty about leaving without checking on Cloey if Shadow wasn't sleeping right next to her in their side-cavern, as was normal. Shadow would be right there if she needed anything.

While Toothless did that, Maour quickly threw a couple of vague ideas onto parchment, letting his varied inspirations out into four different drawings. If they were going to make something new, it was probably a good idea to have options.

'Bad news, brother. Dad asked me to stay here for the first part of tonight so that he can go flying and get food without leaving mom alone. So it looks like I'll be helping from here.'

"That's fine, I'm the one with the hands anyway." Toothless's aid was mostly on the design side of things. "What do you think of these?" He held up the rough sketches.

'I don't actually see much difference between them,' Toothless admitted after a moment of examining the drawings through Maour's eyesight. 'Are they all of the same idea?'

That was fair enough, given they were all similar concepts. "They are all different." He put a finger on the first one. "This one has two blades, like my scythe, but no spikes. Simple."

'Boring,' Toothless noted. 'But it would work. She didn't like the spikes.'

"Yeah, way too easy to make, and we can definitely make it better than that." He had only included that for completeness. "The next one was my first idea. Two ax blades, but it rotates around a centerpiece in the haft. Basically, it can be folded into one ax or unfolded into the first design."

'Interesting. You can make it turn like that?' Toothless asked.

"Of course, but that will be a weak point. If someone hits there hard enough, it might break…" Maour moved his hand to the third design. "Which gave me the idea for this one. The same as before, but if she squeezes that center point, it will come apart-"

'Giving her two axes, like she said she sometimes uses,' Toothless concluded eagerly. 'I like that. Can it be put back together?'

Maour shrugged aimlessly. "That's the part we would have to figure out. The hinge needs to be simple, light, sturdy, and capable of rotating, detaching, and reattaching on the fly. Not to mention it needs to be quick to switch it up, in case she needs to do so while fighting." Not easy, for sure.

'We can do that,' Toothless asserted confidently. 'What's the other drawing?'

"This one was a bit crazier," Maour warned, moving his hand to the fourth and final sketch. "I figured a hinge wasn't the best way to let two axes separate, and thinking about it, we could do this instead. It's basically two axes with a light chain connecting the bottoms of the hafts, along with a simple connecting mechanism. It doesn't rotate, but it's either one thick ax, or two thin ones connected by a chain. I can see some uses for that.'

'I don't know about that. It feels like the chain would get tangled… which might be useful? Is Heather strong enough to use it to pull and trap other weapons?'

"Maybe, but it's a weird weapon, to be sure." He personally liked the third design best. "Which do you like?"  
'Save the ax-and-chain idea for another project,' Toothless decided. 'The third one is better.'

"So we've got to figure out the hinge," Maour concluded. "Well, we have time."

'Do we want it done before we leave? That's not a lot of time.'

Before they left… "I really don't like the idea of leaving mom right now… but we have to, so yes. It's probably better if Heather's armed."

'How long do we have?'

That was a harder question. "Well, it should take those Berserkers two months or so to make it back to Berserker island. It will take us about two weeks to get there ourselves." Flying cut travel time to a fourth of what it would be in a ship and would be even better than that if they could travel in a straight line, as opposed to zig-zagging from island to island to stop and rest.

'So six weeks… and it's been more than three already. We have three more weeks?'

"Actually, no. We want to get to Dagur before they do, so that he can't do anything with their information before we neutralize him." Somehow. That was the big flaw in any plan they could make. They didn't know what Dagur wanted with Heather.

'So we need to leave soon,' was the conclusion. 'Do we need the pack's permission to do all of this? They kind of already said we could.'

"We should talk to Togi, Skarpur, and all the other parents," Maour decided. "Just to be sure." He wanted to go over exactly what they could and couldn't do as a reminder. It had been quite a while since he and Toothless had gone any further out then Mahelmetan, and this time around they had to go into hostile territory. Protecting the pack was of the utmost importance.

'But assuming they say we can go whenever we want…'

Maour knew what his brother was thinking. "We go as soon as we finish this. A few days from now." They had better get to work.

* * *

Three days. One to work out how to make the ax, one to make it, and another to remake it after discovering a myriad of small improvements that could be added. It was a rushed process compared to how they usually worked, but it was fast, which was the point.

It was also an escape from the worry that lingered in the cavern like that terrible smell, as Cloey was not getting better. In fact, she was getting worse… but there was nothing they could do for her.

Not that Maour didn't try. "Try this." He held out a fish that was suspiciously fat. It was a long shot, but…

'What did you put in it this time?' Cloey asked tiredly. 'I think I told you that this wasn't helping.'

"It helps with upset stomachs," Maour objected.

'In humans, not dragons, as we have proven,' Cloey sighed. 'Thank you, but no. Go play outside,' she rumbled in a weak attempt at a joke.

"Is there anything I can do?" he asked almost desperately. "I hate not being able to help you."

'You care. That is enough for me.' She nudged him gently. 'Really, go. I don't want to be a burden, and you sitting around trying to think of ways to help me is not good for anyone. I will be fine.'

"I can't just stay here and sit with you?" he asked. "Shadow is out, Toothless is running with Von, and Heather's ax is done." That was why he wasn't with Toothless. His brother had gone running once the final forging had begun, and was still out.

'Why do you think Skuggi is not here?' Cloey asked. 'I told him to go do something, anything aside from worry. I'm tired and my stomach hurts. That's it. It is not as if anyone can do anything.'

Maour stubbornly sat down, leaning against her side. "Then I won't worry," which was a blatant lie, "but I still want to stay."

'Fine-' Cloey winced, shifting uncomfortably. 'You can stay. But-' She winced again, barking softly in distress. 'Talk about something, anything. Please.'

"Is it getting worse?" She hadn't displayed this much pain before. "Should I get Eldurhjarta-"

'No!' Cloey growled. 'It is hurting more, but there is nothing Eldurhjarta can do, and I don't even feel sick. It will pass.'

He would have objected, but before he could a new voice interrupted. 'Skuggi? May I enter your caves?' What was Nóttleiðtogi doing here?

'Skuggi is out,' Cloey called out. "Come in, Togi.'

'May my son come too?' Nóttleiðtogi asked hesitantly. 'This concerns him and your sons, who I would speak to.'

Cloey cast Maour a glance. 'What business would Nóttreiði have with you?' she asked skeptically. 'He avoids you.'

"I don't know," he replied honestly. "I'm fine with talking to him though, if that's why they're here." He still harbored some faint trace of hope that Nóttreiði would come around, a trace that had strengthened a bit with Heather's addition to the Nótt family. Maybe something had finally broken Nóttreiði's conviction.

'Come in then,' Cloey called out loud enough to be heard from the inner entrance, which was not far from the side-cavern she and Shadow had to themselves. 'We are in the first side-cavern to the right.'

A few moments later, Nóttleiðtogi and Nóttreiði walked into view, Nóttreiði looking quite unhappy with being there. Nóttleiðtogi blinked, taking in Cloey's awkward position, lying on her side against the wall. 'Am I interrupting something?'

'A minor sickness that is not catching,' Cloey groaned. 'Aside from that, no.'

'I wish you a speedy recovery,' Nóttleiðtogi replied vehemently. 'Is there anything my family can do?'

'I would have sent word if there was,' Cloey rumbled. 'And I am finding myself explaining that I don't want to be tended to more than asking for help,' she remarked with a pointed look at Maour. 'But you did not come to talk about my issues.'

'No. Maour, you plan to leave with Toothless and Heather to confront and hopefully deter Dagur soon?' Togi warbled curiously.

"And Einfari if she will come," Maour confirmed. "Soon. Tomorrow, probably, as we're about ready to go. I had meant to make sure the pack was okay with all of that later tonight."

'I am, and I have already made sure Einfari is prepared,' Togi agreed.

What did that mean? Well, Nóttleiðtogi was careful, even when he wasn't being paranoid. "Good. Hopefully, it will go smoothly."

'About that…' Nóttleiðtogi grimaced, growling almost at himself. 'I actually come with a request, one you will very likely not like at first.'

Maour thought fast, noting that Nóttreiði was not speaking, glaring almost half-heartedly, and avoiding eye contact with Cloey. That last part was easily explained. Cloey was protective, and Nóttreiði had tried to kill her adopted son. It seemed she had made her displeasure known at some point.

But as to why Nóttreiði was here… he put the pieces together quickly enough. "You want Nóttreiði to go too?"

'He wants to go,' Nóttleiðtogi corrected, 'and I have taken measures to ensure he will not hinder your chances of success.'

That was ominous even if it was meant to reassure him. "What do you mean by that?"

Nóttleiðtogi nodded to his son, who did nothing but glare. After a moment, he growled at his son. 'Say it or don't go. You agreed, now make it known to the one who needs to know.'

'Fine.' Nóttreiði was looking anywhere other than Maour, now. 'I swore to obey any order you and Toothless give me for the duration of this trip.'

"Why?" What possible reason could Nóttreiði have for that?

Nóttreiði shook his head angrily, not entering the side-cavern, still loitering just outside it. 'I care about my sister, and you will be flying her into danger. She needs protection."

From Dagur… or from Heather, or even from Maour himself. "And you think you can protect her better than she can protect herself?"

Nóttreiði snarled at him. 'I think I can _help _protect her. So I'm going.'

Okay… "Not if I say no," Maour countered, growing angry in turn at his attitude. "Even if you did swear to obey me, why would I want an angry, spiteful dragon coming along? This is going to be tense enough as it is." He wasn't particularly worried about violence from Nóttreiði at the moment, given Nóttleiðtogi was between them.

'Maour, if I may speak to you privately,' Nóttleiðtogi requested.

Maour reluctantly stepped away from Cloey, joining Nóttleiðtogi out in the passage, very carefully avoiding Nóttreiði. He wasn't stupid enough to get within striking distance no matter what Nóttreiði may have sworn.

'Son, go convince Svarturkló she shouldn't forbid Maour from letting you come along,' Nóttleiðtogi ordered. Once they were somewhat alone, he drooped slightly. 'Maour, I would request this as a favor for me, not him.'

"I figured as much," Maour revealed, "but I don't see the point. At best, he'll be about as useful as any other dragon who might want to come, but at worst he'll get himself or someone else killed."

'No, at best a carefully guided trip into the world will strip away some of his narrow-minded ways of thinking,' Nóttleiðtogi confided quietly. 'I cannot lead such a trip with my fears, and you are perfectly suited to drive home the truth. That the world is far more complex and grey than he thinks.'

"So you want Toothless and I to teach him… what? We both know people like me are the exception, not the rule." He wasn't sure what Nóttleiðtogi thought could be accomplished.

'Exactly,' Nóttleiðtogi agreed as if it was obvious. 'So show him the rule. Show him a bad human, many bad humans. This human that kills human nests for no reason and hunts Heather. Let him see how bad most are. It might be that the contrast between them and the humans here will be too much for him to deny. At worst, he will be a little wiser about the world beyond this island, if no less blind. At best, it will force him to rethink his convictions.'

"I'm not sure if-"

'And neither am I,' Nóttleiðtogi cut in, 'but some action must be taken. The longer he hates Heather specifically, the harder it will be for him to change. I am bad enough. She does not need to deal with blind, murderous hate too.'

"So you're doing this for Heather?" That was progress.

'Her, and for my son,' Nóttleiðtogi clarified. 'He is still young, still developing as a person. If I do not set him on the right path, I have failed him. Especially given that his blind hatred for humans is also my fault.'

Maour jumped on that. "No, it's not. What happened to you is truly terrible, but how he took it is not your fault."

'I can admit mistakes, Maour. You do not need to coddle me,' Nóttleiðtogi growled. 'The story is not my fault, but telling it the way I did when he was old enough to hear it _was _my fault. I wanted to be sure he feared humans, to keep him safely away from them. That was a flawed strategy, but one I employed nonetheless.'

"I'll talk to Toothless about taking him along," Maour agreed, both seeing Nóttleiðtogi's point and wanting to pull him away from his brooding on past mistakes. "I think he'll agree once I explain, but I can't promise how helpful it will be-"

'Don't promise. I don't hold you accountable for his flaws, or for fixing them. I would hold him accountable… but he is still a child, in some ways.'

"A moody teenager who thinks he knows everything," Maour supplied. "I know the type, or at least I knew the type back on Berk." The murderous hatred wasn't even new, just reversed, a dragon hating humans as opposed to the other way around.

'Thank you,' Nóttleiðtogi purred quietly, nudging Maour gratefully. 'You do more than anyone should for me and my family. Helping me helps them, too. Has Skarpur ever approached you about it?'

This was new. "No, never." The few interactions he had with Nóttleiðtogi's mate were pleasant but rare.

'She has told me there is an obvious difference now,' Nóttleiðtogi purred. 'In her own words, I am more relaxed, more open with how I feel. I don't feel any different, but…'

"If she sees something, it must be there," Maour finished for him. "I guess so."

'I wish you good luck on this trip,' Nóttleiðtogi remarked after a moment. 'Keep my children safe. Protect our island. And keep Heather safe too. I would not see her future cut short by a maniac, though I don't know where her future is going to lead.'

"I'll do my best," Maour promised. "So will Toothless, I'm sure." He didn't remark on how impressive it was that Nóttleiðtogi could let two of his children go on a long journey with a human in charge. Some things were better left unsaid, and they both knew how much of an accomplishment that was.

Nóttleiðtogi stuck his head back into the side-cavern. 'Son, I have convinced Maour that having you along is just barely worth the headache it might cause, mostly by promising that you will behave. Do not prove me wrong.'

Well, that was a straight-out lie. Some things never change, it seemed. Nóttleiðtogi was still a Nótt, manipulative and cunning. Not that Maour ever wanted to see that change anyway.

'Good,' Cloey remarked irritably. 'Nóttreiði, you know what I will do if you set a claw out of line.'

'I do,' Nóttreiði agreed, his voice wavering between shock and fear. 'I definitely do.'

'I'm not sure I'm comfortable with you threatening my child,' Nóttleiðtogi growled.

'I'm not sure I'm comfortable with your child wanting mine dead, but we tolerate that too,' Cloey shot back. 'I am not in a good mood to be making decisions, but all the same, I don't like this. Be glad _I _am letting it happen.'

Nóttleiðtogi nodded respectfully. 'I am glad. Hopefully, neither of us will have reason to be unhappy in the near future.'

'Hopefully,' Cloey grumbled.

After they had left, Maour burst out laughing. "What did you _say _to Nóttreiði? He didn't even look at me on the way out!" With all of the tension in the air, it hadn't seemed funny at the time, but looking back, it was hilarious.

'I told him among other things, that if he laid a claw on you I would take that claw and-' Cloey winced. 'Maybe I regret some of what I said, now that I think about it. That one was a little harsh. But he needed to know that hurting you would be the worst mistake he ever made.'

Maour understood why Toothless wasn't included in that threat. He could take care of himself, and was far past an even footing with Nóttreiði.

It might have felt bad to have someone so clearly labeling him as weak compared to his own brother… but he was. Physically, Toothless would always be superior in most ways. It was not shameful to acknowledge the truth, not here. And it did feel good to know he had a mother figure who cared enough to threaten someone in his defense. To have a mother figure at all.

Which made it so much worse that she was suffering and there was nothing he could do. He forced down yet another offer to bring her food, or water, or anything she wanted. She would ask if she needed it, and did not like him asking her.

"I think," Maour quipped, getting back to the thread of conversation, "that he thinks crossing you would be the worst decision. Not just hurting me."

'It would-' Cloey barked in shock. It was a different bark this time, one that was not just pain, also laden with surprise. 'That _really _hurt!'

Maour rushed to her side, at a loss as to what to do. "It's definitely getting worse?"

'So much worse,' Cloey groaned. 'And the pain is moving now, going down-'

Maour flinched at the abrupt silence. "And?"

'Maour,' Cloey said in a deceptively calm voice, 'remember when you said you can see humans before they hatch?'

"Yes, but-"

'What can you see?' She craned her neck, indicating her exposed underbelly. 'This is not right, and laying eggs does not hurt, or should not, but some of this feels familiar now.'

That was worrying. Even if it was an egg, what was different now? Maour put a hand on her stomach, feeling for-

A solid lump located somewhere slightly under her belly, near a place he didn't want to touch. Yes, there was definitely something.

"Yeah, I can feel something. I can't _see _it, but it's there." He was not qualified to help with any kind of egg-laying! "I'm getting Eldurhjarta."

'No,' Cloey commanded seriously, 'get Skuggi, Toothless, and Von. Laying eggs is not something outsiders get to be present for.'

He had to argue that. "But something is obviously wrong! We might need her knowledge-"

'Maour, she _has _no knowledge on this,' Cloey gritted out. 'Else she would have said. She never leaves anything out, and this would be pretty obvious if she had anything similar to compare it to.'

"She still understands basic stuff like how to help if you start bleeding or something breaks or-"

'Fine!' Cloey cut in. 'But she needs to stay out of this side-cavern unless something _actually _goes wrong!'

"All I wanted," Maour agreed hastily. "So get Toothless, Von, Shadow, and Eldurhjarta. On it!"

* * *

Alerting Toothless, and by extension Von, was easy, done in seconds. Von set out to find Shadow, leaving Eldurhjarta to Maour. Luckily, she was just outside the Eldur section of the caverns.

He had not, however, counted on how she reacted to the news.

'Oh, good. Congratulate her for me, will you?' Eldurhjarta remarked, before going back to aimlessly sorting five different pebbles, staring intently at them.

It took Maour a second to process that. "She's in pain, and we want you to be nearby in case there's trouble." This indifferent attitude was totally at odds with every other time he had ever interacted with her. What was going on?

'I suppose,' Eldurhjarta agreed slowly. 'But you do know she'll do her best to hurt me if I go in there, right?'

"What?" Maour was fine with her explaining as long as she did it on the move. "Why would she do that?"  
'Egg laying is a time of paranoia and caution,' Eldurhjarta explained as they walked, far too slowly in Maour's eyes, back to the side-cavern. 'She'll lash out at anyone not in her immediate family. Are you sure you should-'

Maour managed a half-decent growl, though it hurt his throat, eliciting a bark of surprise from Eldurhjarta. "What were you going to imply?" He didn't intend to sound dangerously calm, but it didn't bother him.

'... I was going to imply you shouldn't go in there unless she says it's okay,' Eldurhjarta asserted. 'And you're far too small to intimidate me with a growl, though it was quite impressive for a human.'

"I wasn't…" No, he was. No point in denying it. "I don't like that you questioned how she sees me." Maybe he was a bit more sensitive than most would be on that particular topic.

'I didn't question _that,'_ Eldurhjarta countered. 'I've heard a few stories about adopted Furies not being accepted at an egg-laying or hatching, though those are very old stories and a lot of the details make no sense.'

"Well, she didn't want me to leave," Maour said, feeling suddenly uncertain as to whether Cloey had intended him to return after getting the others. "We'll see."

'Sorry for bringing it up, but nobody would be happy if she hurt you because you didn't understand how all of this works,' Eldurhjarta replied. 'A lot of the egg-laying and hatchling-rearing process is instinctual, stuff we don't fight unless it's really, really important to do so. It's stressful, I'm told, and better for everyone involved to not make anyone go through fighting themselves.'

This was news to Maour, given humans did not have such insistent instincts. Come to think of it, did they have instincts at all? He really didn't know how one would tell.

Eldurhjarta stopped just inside the central cavern, nodding to the Svartur section of the caves. 'This is close enough, not even in her territory. I can be there in seconds if it's actually necessary, but I won't make her nervous. Come get me if she needs help.'

Maour nodded, impatiently speeding up now that he wasn't stuck walking behind her, running back to the side-cavern-

And hesitating just out of sight, hating the sliver of worry in the back of his mind. "Cloey, Eldurhjarta is in the central cavern, standing by."

'Good,' Shadow replied from out of sight. 'We're all here. It should not be long… hopefully.'

'Get in here, Maour,' Toothless continued. 'What are you waiting for?'

"Eldurhjarta told me a little of why she wouldn't come any closer unless absolutely necess-"

'I'm going to have to _talk_ to her at some point too, it seems,' Cloey snarled loudly. 'Get in here!'

The aggravated promise to deal with Eldurhjarta aside, that was good news. Maour slipped around the corner, almost tripped over Von's tail, and slid to an awkward stop against Toothless side. The three spectators were arrayed as far from Cloey as possible, back against the other walls. Cloey was still lying on her side, looking utterly miserable and quite angry at the moment.

It only then occurred to Maour to wonder if he _wanted_ to be present when Cloey laid an egg, or why she wanted anyone else around, aside from the obvious worry caused by the pain she apparently shouldn't be feeling.

"So do we need to… do… anything?" he asked, almost dreading the answer.

'Technically, we're supposed to guard her with our lives,' Shadow explained quietly. 'That is why she is comfortable with us in here, but no one else. Anyone she feels even the slightest hint of distrust towards-'

'I expect you to keep out of here, if you have to knock them out to do it,' Cloey finished irritably. 'Else I'll do it, and I might really hurt whoever is stupid enough to try to come in here.'

'It should not be necessary this time,' Shadow finished. 'Other than that, no.'

'It will not be long,' Cloey moaned. 'Why does it hurt?'

Why wasn't Shadow comforting her? Maour could guess. She was aggressive enough as it was, and it was possible he was being careful in not getting close. It was strange to see her so clearly on edge and dangerous when there was no reason to suspect bad intentions from anyone on the island.

Time passed. It was hard to tell how much, sitting in a dark cave while someone he cared about alternated between groaning and snarling, suffering for no reason that anyone knew. For humans, it was supposed to hurt, but this wasn't normal for dragons, and that meant that something was wrong.

Something was wrong. That was what made this so unbearably tense. Nobody spoke, and even idle movement was kept to a minimum. Everyone was worried.

And then something changed. Cloey awkwardly rolled down onto her stomach, backed into a corner, and glared aimlessly into the distance. Her teeth bared in a soundless snarl…

Then she moved aside, revealing a black, leathery egg, somewhat larger than Maour's head, shockingly small, all in all.

'Does it have a heartbeat?' Shadow called out, seeming to remind Cloey of some procedure she should be following.

Cloey leaned over it, her ears lifting to listen carefully.

'Yes,' she sighed. 'It is strong and steady. But I feel no different. A little less pain, but-'

She hunched over again, her face the embodiment of confusion. 'But…'

Oh, so she had more than one. Cool. Maour smiled as she moved aside to reveal a second egg, and confirmed that it was normal and healthy. Maybe that was why it was so uncomfortable. Two eggs, even relatively small ones, would be more of a burden to carry than one, which was all she had known before now.

'Two.' Von's voice was quiet and stunned. 'Two eggs.'

Okay, now he had to ask. "Is that rare?"

'Unheard of, actually,' Shadow remarked.

'You want unheard of?' Cloey gritted, hunching over again. 'Try three.'

But when she moved aside, she did not reveal a third egg…

Well, no, it was an egg. An even smaller, undeveloped one that was oddly flat, like it had been squished. It was leaking from one end, lopsided and broken.

Cloey's entire demeanor, which had been a mixture of pain and surprise, faded to dull sorrow. She nosed at the third egg sadly, listening for a long moment. 'Nothing.' That was no surprise, given how it looked, but it still felt wrong, if only because it was clearly supposed to be another egg, just like the others.

'Is that all, do you think?' Shadow asked cautiously.

'I hope so. I feel better, though my stomach still hurts,' Cloey remarked quietly, her voice laden with distress that no longer came from physical discomfort. 'Should..?'

'No, I will,' Shadow declared, carefully sidling over, nuzzling his mate behind the ears, and picking up the deformed egg. 'There are still two that need your attention. Let me send this one off.'

Cloey rumbled in assent, nosing the second egg over to the first and curling up around them, setting her tail on top of them.

'Toothless, Von, Maour,' Shadow called. 'Will one of you come with me? We are not going far, but I would rather not do this alone.'

'I'll go,' Toothless volunteered, following Shadow out.

'So…' Von looked over at Maour, and then at Cloey, who was staring at the eggs. 'That happened.'

"Three eggs," Maour mused. "That never happens?" He had an admittedly morbid theory as to why multiple eggs was unheard of.

'Never,' Von confirmed. 'Two is just as unlikely. I didn't think it was possible.'

'I think,' Cloey cut in, 'there is a reason for that. One of them was… crushed. If it had broken inside me…'

Those eggs had looked solid, but if they were like chicken eggs, which Maour knew, then they would be sharp when broken, entirely capable of doing a lot of damage if they were inside someone at the time. It seemed Cloey had come to the same conclusion he had. "Maybe there are no stories of multiple eggs because having them is dangerous."

'But there would still be-' Von cut herself off as she understood. 'Oh.'

No stories if the mothers always died from injuries caused by broken eggs. How lucky had Cloey been these last few months? Had she been one false move away from certain death of internal injuries?

They had tended to her, bringing her food and water. She hadn't needed to go anywhere aside from relieving herself in weeks, even lying on her side instead of her stomach because it was uncomfortable to do otherwise… but these were ideal conditions, with plenty of people willing to help. How dangerous would going about her life as normal have been?

He really didn't like those odds.

'Maour, we're on our way back,' Toothless remarked in his head. 'It was pretty fast.'

"What happened?" he whispered, morbidly curious. Toothless was accessing his hearing, so he would definitely hear even that.

'Dad said a few things about life not being fair, flew out over the ocean, and dropped it into the water,' Toothless recounted sadly.

'Von, Maour,' Cloey called out, looking up. 'Come over here.' Once they had done so, she sighed softly. 'Neither of you know anything of all of this. When Kappi and Skuggi are back, I will explain what is expected of you. For now, just know I'm not going to bite you if you get too close,' she joked weakly. 'But I will bite anyone outside of our family, so don't bring anyone into our territory.'

That wasn't going to be a problem. As it was, other dragons were already hesitant to go into the caves of another family.

But how far did her tolerance go? "Can… can I touch them?" Maour asked carefully. "It's okay if I can't, I just want to know what you're okay with."

'Yes, you can,' Cloey purred, shifting her tail. 'Go ahead.'

Maour did so, leaning over the bulk of her tail to put a hand on each of the two eggs. They were warm, leathery and somewhat slimy, and almost pulsing.

"Wow…" He remained like that for a few moments. Then the part of him that had to ask questions reasserted itself. "They're normal? I would have guessed they would be bigger."

'No, this is normal,' Cloey reassured him, a hint of sadness in her voice reminding them of the one that had not turned out so well. 'And the hatchlings are just as small for a long while. Our kind grow slowly and start small.'

'And stay small for a while,' Shadow added, returning to the side-cavern. 'Weak, helpless, cold.'

Cold. "Why cold?" It was a bit weird that Shadow had specified that.

'See that?' Shadow nodded to Cloey, who was still curled around the eggs protectively. 'They need heat at all times. Otherwise they die. The same applies to hatchlings for a long time. One can be tended by two parents, and no less, because there's no way for just one dragon to keep an egg or hatchling alive on their own. We can't leave them, and an actual fire is no help, either dying out or burning the one it should be keeping alive. Body heat is all that works.'

'Actually, no, it's not,' Cloey corrected, her voice reluctant. 'A ledge on the inside of a volcano works too. Ambient heat that does not vary.'

A volcano… the Queen, Toothless's egg. Being forced to leave it unattended, though every instinct would scream that doing so was terribly wrong.

'But that is not an option most of the time, and no sane dragon would risk it with their own egg,' Shadow replied seriously. 'The Queen was not risking her own egg, I suppose.'

'She didn't even care,' Cloey confirmed. 'The egg was a pleasant surprise… right up until the moment she learned that our eggs are not so easy to leave unattended. Other dragons do not have to worry about the cold.'

Another anomaly. Maour was beginning to notice that Night Furies were strange, even for dragons. They were sleek, had soft scales, and apparently were entirely vulnerable for a large part of their lives. That was not even close to the stories of hatchling dragons, such as Changewings, which were deadly even as hatchlings. While he didn't entirely believe most of what Vikings said of their mortal enemies, he had yet to find anything he was taught to be _wrong._ Misguided on how to deal with them, yes, but not wrong in the details.

'So… what happens now?' Toothless warbled curiously. 'What do we need to do to help?'

'Anything you can,' Cloey purred tiredly. 'For now, that is nothing more than occasionally bringing food, and maybe watching them for short times while I go make sure I can still fly,' she joked. 'Once they hatch…'

'Then things _would_ become nearly impossible,' Shadow supplied brightly. 'If it were just the two of us. We cannot accept help from anyone outside of the family, and even tending one hatchling takes all of our attention.' Despite describing a bad situation, he sounded relieved, not worried.

'But we're here,' Von concluded. 'So we can pick up the extra work.'

'Yes. That will not be for three or so months, so savor your free time now, Von…' Shadow turned to Maour and Toothless, his jovial tone fading. 'And get going, both of you. You need to be back in less than three months.'

The trip. Dagur, and getting information from Gobber. A several-month-long journey. Maour wanted to object… but it was still important.

Toothless, it seemed, had slightly different priorities. 'That can wait. Heather is safe here, and Astrid probably won't come this way. This is more important.'

'No,' Cloey grumbled, 'you need to go. Probably is not definitely, and if she does come here by chance, we need to flee… and we can't with eggs or hatchlings. There is absolutely no way to keep them warm enough in the air.'

"I might be able to come up with something," Maour supplied helpfully, "but yeah, not a good idea. We do need to go." He hated to leave with the weight of future responsibility on his head, knowing that to be late in returning would be to neglect an extremely important task.

'And if we cannot return in time?' Toothless whined. 'You need all three of us. You just said so.'

'No,' Shadow corrected calmly, 'it would be much harder with only Von to help, but it would still be possible. We will just be very, very busy if that happens. There is no comparison. You must go, as planned. At least now you are not leaving with your mother's mysterious illness worrying you.'

'I guess there is that one specific thing,' Toothless grumbled. 'Fine.'

'Stop pouting,' Von remarked, slapping him lightly with her tail. 'Think of it this way. The faster you fly, the faster you get back.'

'And to fly fast, you need sleep,' Cloey remarked, looking as if she herself needed that too. 'But… I would be much more comfortable if we temporarily changed how that works. Von, can you sleep in the passage between our section of the caves and the central cavern?'

'Sure.' Von looked confused as to why that was needed, but she clearly didn't mind all that much.

'Maour, Toothless,' Cloey continued, 'I'd be grateful if you can do the same in the passage to the outside.'

A cramped, twisted little corridor that, now that Maour thought about it, served as a very effective choke point in regards to entry. Cloey was setting guards. "I assume no one is allowed in?"

'Exactly,' Cloey purred. 'Skuggi…'

'Right here with you, and you are not convincing me otherwise,' Skuggi declared. 'If I must appease your defensive side, know that it is better to have me guarding your back, and if you turn to face that way,' he nodded to the far wall, 'I will also be facing the entrance. No one will get in.'

'Perfect,' Cloey murmured, her eyes closing.

Now Maour understood why nobody outside of the Eldurs had seen Vartha, their hatchling. They were also defending their side of the caverns against everyone, though nobody harbored the faintest ill-will towards them. Now that he thought of it, he had run into Eldurhjarta outside of their-

Eldurhjarta. He needed to go tell her all was well… "What do we tell people?" News of Vartha had been very slow in coming, and maybe defensiveness extended to secrecy?

'Whatever you wish,' Shadow replied. 'It will be very obvious, as the others know the signs of a new egg. They will understand us guarding our territory once they think about it.'

'And we will guard it as soon as we can,' Toothless promised. 'Come on, Maour.'

"Is it dawn?" He really didn't know, and not feeling tired told him nothing nowadays, given how long it took for that to kick in thanks to the effects of the link.

'No, but we still need to be sure the pack approves of what we'll be doing, and we have to do that tonight,' Toothless explained, pushing Maour out towards the rest of the cave system. 'We need to be faster!'

"Okay, okay, just stop pushing!" Maour laughed, side-stepping Toothless. "I'm going." It seemed his brother was taking Von's advice to heart. The faster they left, the faster they could get back.


	11. Chapter 11

Heather sat with her legs crossed, her back to the side of the ledge she was leaning against. Einfari and the rest of the Nótts were arrayed across their side of the central cavern. This time around, she could actually hear all that was said.

That didn't make it any less boring. "How long do these things usually take?" she whispered to Einfari.

Einfari shrugged, looking as bored as Heather felt. "It should not be that much longer. They are just debating exactly what Maour can and cannot reveal if it becomes necessary."

"I know _that,_" Heather complained. "But do you have any idea how many more little details like 'can he talk about what we like to eat' need to be debated?" Really, it felt excessive, but Maour was actually dragging it out, asking questions and bringing up more possibilities that needed to be discussed. How he could stand being so controlled was beyond her. The hypothetical about food was only a _slight _exaggeration.

"This is important, Heather, like it or not," Skarpur intervened. "And these same rules will apply to you, so pay attention, please."

Heather blushed. She had not known Skarpur could hear them. "I know, sorry."

But in her defense, this had been going on for quite a while, and was only now showing signs of possibly ending soon. She closed her eyes, considering whether or not falling asleep was a good idea…

* * *

Eventually the pack meeting ended and she and Einfari went home to get one final day of sleep before setting out. It was a little odd, not having anything to pack, but that was how dragons traveled and therefore how she would travel. No food, a few skins of water Maour had given her a while back, and the plain ax from the stockpile of weapons Maour kept from the Berserker visit.

The night they were to leave was warm and almost humid, thick clouds drifting in a patchwork across the sky.

'Not the best weather,' Einfari noted as they waited for Nóttreiði to show up. 'Maybe we would be better off waiting a day or so for that to pass? It might be a storm.'

"I guess it's up to Maour," Heather replied calmly.

"And Toothless," Einfari added. "They do not order each other around. If one is in charge, so is the other."

From what she had seen, that sounded right. She didn't really know Toothless that well, other than as an extension of Maour.

Actually… "What makes them different?"

'What?' Einfari had no idea what she was asking.

"Maour and Toothless," Heather clarified. "They are similar, but in what ways are they not?" She really couldn't think of a way to ask what she meant any clearer than that.

'Oh,' Einfari hummed thoughtfully. 'I don't know of many differences, aside from the obvious. Toothless is more likely to act as opposed to plan, and Maour really enjoys making things, while Toothless seems to care more about the result than the process. I don't know them well enough to see any other big differences."

That wasn't much, all in all. Surely there was more.

Heather's thoughts on the subject were interrupted by Nóttreiði walking out of the cavern, trailed by Nótthljóður.

'You said goodbye to mom and dad?' Einfari immediately asked.

'Of course,' Nóttreiði grunted irritably, looking down at Nótthljóður. 'And to Joy, but she doesn't seem to care about that.'

'I wanna go,' Nótthljóður remarked calmly.

Einfari leaned down and bopped her sister on the nose with her paw. 'No you don't, I think. There will be no time to play, flying all night, no fun whatsoever,' she explained. 'I wish none of us had to go. But if you _really _want to be serious for a few months…'

Nótthljóður grimaced, shaking her head and backing away. 'I don't wanna go.' She nuzzled Einfari's chest, before happily butting her head against Heather's legs. 'Come back soon.'

Heather smiled, crouching to be closer to Nótthljóður's height and tousling her ears. "I plan to."

Einfari purred loudly, nudging Nótthljóður back towards their cave. 'Go play with dad. Keep him busy, okay? We'll be back soon enough.'

There was something odd about how Einfari had said that, but Heather wasn't sure what it was.

It didn't hit her until they were in the air, headed to the Svartur entrance to the caves, as Maour and Toothless hadn't come to them.

"Einfari…" She spared a moment to be sure Nóttreiði wasn't listening, flying slightly ahead of them. "You called him 'dad' just now, but usually call him 'father'. Which is it?"

Einfari hummed thoughtfully. 'I don't actually know why I did that. Joy calls him dad. Nóttreiði and I did the same when we were fledglings. Nobody ever told us to stop, but we both did at some point. There's no real difference. Father is what we say in public.'

More of putting on appearances, putting up defenses. "Nobody gets to see how you all really are."  
'It sounds bad when you put it like that,' Einfari remarked. 'Why should we show everything to anyone else? They could use it against us.'

Heather shrugged aimlessly. "I agree, really. You guys are just more… methodical, I guess." Even their choice of words was calculated, albeit on a somewhat unconscious level, according to Einfari.

"We are? You hide yourself just as effectively,' Einfari rumbled. 'Not a bad thing, just how _we_, us and you, are.'

"How I am now," Heather murmured. Had she been like this before… everything? Before being hunted, before being a prisoner to Outcasts, before being forced to spy… she couldn't remember. Was how she was a product of that?

If it was, that made her even more like the Nótts, like Nóttleiðtogi in particular. Marked by her past. A past that, like him, she did not fully understand.

It was a parallel she had not noticed before. Both singled out and persecuted by a mysterious person they did not know for reasons that had never been revealed.

And both scarred by it?

Her mind was brought back to how she had zoned out in the past few weeks, how she no longer totally understood her own reactions to some things, like remembering her time on the run in detail. Maybe that was it, whatever _it _was in this case. Vikings knew pretty much nothing about how people thought. They weren't ones for thinking at all, so that made total sense.

_Vikings_ knew nothing. If she was like Nóttleiðtogi, mentally scarred in some way, it stood to reason Maour, who apparently knew enough to help Nóttleiðtogi, would be able to help her.

But she didn't want help from him. Not with this. Maybe she could just find out what he knew on the sly and use it herself.

Yes, that was a much better solution. There would be plenty of time to coax him into talking about stuff like this on the trip.

And speaking of coaxing him into talking, they were here. It was a bit odd that he hadn't come to meet them, but whatever. He and Toothless were… sleeping right in the cavern entrance, totally blocking the way. Maour was on Toothless's back, awkwardly draped over the readied saddle. That could not possibly be normal, if only because she was sure Maour would wake up to a sore back and neck, sleeping like that. The saddle did not look to be a comfortable bed.

Nóttreiði had been flying in front of them, and landed first, leading the way. He was not gentle in waking them, roaring loudly from only a few feet away.

It wasn't a smart thing to do, but Heather was definitely surprised by the response it elicited.

Toothless bolted up, throwing Maour off, and spread his wings, recklessly knocking them against the sides of the cave entrance, totally blocking as much of the cave as possible. His eyes were fogged with confusion, which lifted after a few moments of his strange posturing…

But he didn't move. 'Maour?' he called back, his voice tense and worried. 'Are you okay?'

"Fine, fine, just trying not to freak out," Maour called from behind Toothless. "Waking up to a loud noise and falling through the air is horrible."

'One of those is my fault,' Toothless admitted, still tense, not looking back. 'But I was as surprised as you.'

'Are you coming, or do we need to go alone?' Nóttreiði growled, interrupting them, moving forward as if to force Toothless out of the cavern entrance. 'Time is wasting, and I would be done with this as soon as possible.'

Toothless snarled dangerously. 'Get away from our territory, Nóttreiði. Now.'

Maour squirmed out from under Toothless's physical blockade, looking to be somewhere between angry and nervous. "Let's all just calm down-"

'Hurry up then!' Nóttreiði growled. 'We are ready to go, but you are asleep!'

"Were asleep, you mean," Maour shot back. "Yes, we overslept. Sorry. Now back off." His voice was cold and almost dangerous. "Now, or you do not get to come."

Nóttreiði faltered at that, cutting off yet another snarl halfway through, clearly fighting himself. He was trying to hold to his pride… and his right to go with them. He took a step back, glaring all the way.

'Can we just put this aside and get going?' Einfari asked carefully. 'You overslept, my brother was obnoxious in waking you, and nobody is happy. Fighting over it is pointless.' She sounded genuinely confused. 'Why are all three of you just making it worse?'

Maour turned to look at Einfari. "Making it worse…" he repeated. "Well, I guess we are." He didn't sound very sorry about that.

'Yes, you are.' Einfari eyed her brother after saying that. 'And so are you.'

'Go. We will catch up in a few minutes,' Toothless suggested, still blocking the cavern entrance.

'Great!' Nóttreiði leaped into the air and abruptly left, heading out to sea.

'He doesn't know which way we are going,' Einfari objected.

'Then he can fly in pointless circles up there for a few minutes,' Toothless shot back. 'Go join him.'

"Bud, they didn't do anything," Maour cut in. "But we will be along soon. Make sure he doesn't just go off in a random direction."

'Okay…' Einfari eyed Toothless. 'Are you going to move?'

'No,' Toothless replied, in spite of all reason.

'Can I go inside and say hello to your mother?' Einfari asked, her voice speculative.

That was met with a deep growl. 'Definitely not.'

Heather had to call him out on that. "What is your problem?"

Einfari subtly shook her head, a signal Heather knew meant to stop. 'I understand. We will be waiting.' She spread her wings, giving Heather warning that she meant to leap up, and left.

"Okay, what was with that?" Heather hated being out of the loop. "He was acting weird."

'Nóttreiði is blind,' Einfari griped. 'He should have recognized what was going on and backed down immediately. You don't mess with a dragon guarding something, especially that.'

"Tell me what that is, and maybe I'll get it."

'An egg. It all makes total sense. Nóttreiði and I both did exactly the same for Joy,' Einfari explained. 'Nobody gets into their territory right now. Toothless was blocking the way in, and would sooner kill Nóttreiði than budge from his place, _especially _given Toothless already sees Nóttreiði as a threat thanks to past mistakes.'

An egg… "Didn't you tell me the Svarturs couldn't have more eggs?" She vaguely recalled that.

'No, I said they were trying, but it wasn't happening. I guess that changed. Good for them!' Einfari laughed happily. 'It's always nice to see another new dragon, even if _we _won't get to see him or her for four years.'

"Every time I think I've heard everything," Heather remarked. "Seriously? Nobody gets to see it for four years?"

'Not an "it", and yes,' Einfari corrected breezily. 'Hatchlings entirely trust anyone they interact with during that time. Nobody knows why, but that feeling is permanent. If he or she got a lot of friendly visitors, they would trust those visitors in a way that should only be extended to close family. It's not safe for them, even here.'

"So no babysitters?" Heather asked curiously.

'What?' Einfari was flying at an upward angle now, chasing after her brother. 'Who in their right mind would sit on their baby? That's the human word for hatchling, right?'

Heather laughed at that. "Yes, but that's not what they do. I just mean other people watching the baby, or in this case hatchling, for a while so that the parents can do something else or just relax."

'Then no,' Einfari replied seriously. 'Family only, so for Joy, that was Nóttreiði or me. For the Svarturs, it will be Von, Toothless, and maybe Maour. Those are the only people Svarturkló and Svarturskuggi will allow near a hatchling.'

They were getting close to Nóttreiði now. Einfari slowed down to trail him, not announcing her presence.

"Are you going to tell him?" Heather asked curiously. Nóttreiði hadn't figured it out on his own, after all.

'No. I would not be surprised if Toothless and Maour do not tell him either. He doesn't need to know.' Einfari shook her head sadly. 'He would just be rude about it.'

True. They glided behind Nóttreiði for a while, waiting for Maour and Toothless to get up into the air. The clouds were slowly scattering. It looked like there would be no storm… here.

With that thought, Heather tried to reason out which direction they would be going. It was a _very _complex puzzle, because she only knew where places were in relation to each other. Maps were another luxury she had not been able to afford. So, she knew roughly where Berserker island was in relation to her home island… what had been her home, when it still existed… and she could think back, following her own route out here, far from there… but then she had been caught, and from that point on, she had no idea what direction the Berserker ship had gone. A bit less than a week, in any case, which wasn't so far…

It took her a while to reconcile all of those directions, but eventually she turned in the saddle to face… the cloud bank that was even now moving away. They would be following it, or maybe flying through it.

'Now we can go,' Toothless announced, catching up to them. 'Sorry for the wait.'

'Point us in the right direction,' Einfari requested.

Toothless flew up to the front of the group, flying quickly to pass Nóttreiði, and turned, facing the retreating storm.

"That looks like fun," Maour remarked sarcastically, his voice carrying over the wind. "What moves faster, clouds or a Night Fury?"

'You know the answer to that, we fly through them all the time,' Toothless quipped. 'Us, definitely. Do we go around once we get into it?'

"I don't see why we would, really," Maour announced. "We don't know how big it is, and we do have a deadline of sorts. We can just find an island and set down if it gets too bad."

'You're the one with the map,' Toothless remarked.

"The old map," Maour corrected, his voice almost too quiet for Heather to hear. "The one that lists home as just another empty, deserted hunk of rock and trees. Nobody is getting anything from me on our island."

He was sure of that. It was comforting, because that certainty was protecting her as well. Having allies gave her a good feeling.

* * *

They flew all night, gliding high through the cold night sky. Conversations faltered and died as the night wore on, everyone seeming to prefer thinking to talking for the time being. Nóttreiði was sulking, or maybe quietly raging. It was hard to tell. Toothless also seemed a bit stressed, though that faded as the night wore on.

Actually, she didn't know for sure whether or not Toothless and Maour were talking. The Furies had spread out to what seemed to be a comfortable distance, only holding to a formation in that they could regroup in a few seconds of actual effort, as opposed to gliding at a distance from each other.

It did not really feel like they were one group. Right now, they felt like three different groups, each with their own goal. Maour and Toothless were out here to protect their island from any potential threats, gathering information and redirecting possible threats. Heather and Einfari were here to kill Dagur. No more, and no less. Nobody else knew that, but it didn't matter. Their goal worked hand in hand with Maour's, though he would not approve of it in advance if he knew. He would not have any reason to object once it was done.

And the third group, or more accurately loner, Nóttreiði, was here to protect and kill. Heather put her hand over the leather flap covering her borrowed ax as it lay holstered to the side of the saddle, protected from the wet night air… and from prying eyes. Nóttreiði's eyes. He didn't know she had it, or any weapon of any kind.

That was probably why he never objected to her riding Einfari. As far as he knew, there was nothing she could do to Einfari. Her teeth were blunt and her nails laughable as weapons, her arms too weak to even attempt choking Einfari. She was not a physical threat.

But he would watch her all the same, waiting eagerly for her to slip up in any way, or even to look like she was slipping up. That was all it would take. The same attentiveness would probably be applied to Maour…

Maour. How far did swearing to obey him hold Nóttreiði? Heather knew keeping one's word was important, but she could imagine breaking it for good enough reasons, and she really didn't know Nóttreiði well enough to fairly judge whether he could do the same. He seemed vile and dangerous… for a reason, no matter how wrong-headed or misguided. Einfari always insisted Heather had never seen Nóttreiði relaxed or otherwise acting normally, so clearly there was more to him than this, somewhere deep down.

Deep down, buried by hate. Would that ever change?

Time would tell. She stared at the stars above, forcing herself to relax. They were moving towards Dagur now, and she did not feel prepared. But it was going to happen anyway, and she had a family and village to avenge. There was no point in stressing out over it. She would kill him and be done with that. Life truly free sounded good, though she really didn't think it would be much different to what she had now. Just free of the lingering fear that Berserkers would somehow show up and tear apart that which she was beginning to truly value.

* * *

They set down on a rocky outcropping of islands and fallen sea stacks just before dawn, settling down to sleep.

At least, the dragons were settling down to sleep. Toothless and Einfari had their saddles removed, and all three dragons had taken their share of the water they had been carrying, though Nóttreiði did so begrudgingly, seeming to hate accepting anything from Maour, though the canteen he had been given was oddly shaped and seemed designed for a dragon to use without human aid. At least, that was what Heather assumed, as all three of the Furies had taken one, Toothless demonstrating how to use them to the other two. Apparently, all one had to do was pick it up and tip one's head back… if one was a dragon. She had her own water skin, so she wouldn't have to figure out how Maour's odd canteens worked.

Heather wasn't particularly tired, and from the way Maour was digging around in the almost comically large saddlebags Toothless had been weighed down with, he felt the same.

"What are you looking for?" she asked, going to stand behind him and hopefully look over his shoulder.

"Something you might need," he responded cryptically, beginning to pull things out of the bag, setting them on the rock beside him. A canteen, loose parchment, a notebook with ragged edges, three knives-

She subtly kicked the knives back in front of him, out of sight. He didn't notice, still digging. Best not to let Nóttreiði see those, even if he was going to be keeping them in the bag and well out of the way. Why did he even have them?

"Here we go," Maour sighed, pulling a cloth-wrapped bundle up from the very bottom of the bag. "Figures it ended up at the bottom."

"What is it?" Heather asked curiously. It was oddly shaped and almost looked like-

"Well," Maour began unwrapping it, "you said you prefered axes, one or maybe two, but you liked my Scythe having two ends."

Oh no. Heather held out a hand, straining to think of a way to stop him before-

Too late. He finished unwinding the cloth, revealing a clean, new ax blade with an odd shape. Several odd shapes, and a strange handle. "We made you something new."

She cast a quick glance over her shoulder, to see Einfari watching intently. Toothless was also observing with a smug look on his face…

And Nóttreiði was prowling down off of the slightly raised rock he had claimed, moving closer, his eyes slits.

Maour saw it too. "Nóttreiði…"

'It is a weapon,' Nóttreiði said coldly. 'A tool of death.'

'Of defense,' Toothless interjected, now tense, ready to leap into action if necessary. 'Not necessarily offense.'

'Same thing,' Nóttreiði grunted. 'I will not tolerate it on my sister's back if it is armed.'

'And you do not think to ask what _I _will tolerate on my own back?' Einfari objected.

"She needs some way to defend herself if something happens, and always depending only on an angry Night Fury might not be a good idea in some cases," Maour declared, setting the cloth aside to hold up the odd ax. "This is just like me letting you have claws. You need them, don't you?" There was steel to his voice, and Heather knew he would use his leverage over Nóttreiði to force this if Nóttreiði did not bend now.

But she didn't want that to happen. Her whole approach with Nóttreiði had been reduced to not antagonizing him and waiting for it to sink in that he was the problem, not her, however weak an approach that was, and this would be something he could and would rightfully hold against her.

How to use this to her advantage instead? She thought fast, and it hit her almost immediately.

"No, Maour," she said loudly, meeting his eyes and trying to project an air of seriousness. "If he doesn't want me armed, keep it. You can give it to me when he decides I can have it."

'What?' Einfari barked incredulously.

"He doesn't get to decide," Maour argued, sounding just as incredulous as Einfari, clutching the ax as if protecting it from Nóttreiði.

"I do, and I am saying he does," Heather countered, crossing her arms. "Let him be petty. Maybe it will get one of us hurt or even killed because I could do nothing to help defend Einfari or myself. That will be on his head."

'She says you get to say when she can have it,' Einfari relayed to Nóttreiði. 'And she says it will be your fault if one of us dies because she could not defend us.'

'She will be doing no defending if it comes to that, weapon or not,' Nóttreiði growled. 'I say she gets no claws of any kind.'

He didn't know about her ax… but did she want to make an even more powerful statement, or keep a secret defense?

She needed Dagur dead… but she was not great with any weapon, and he was probably much better than 'not great' in any case. Einfari would be the one to actually end him, in all likelihood…

A risk, either way. Revealing her other weapon could enrage him, would enrage him, but keeping it also might backfire if he ever found out about it on his own.

So many possibilities…

She decided to take her chances with showing him. "And since you are so sure I cannot be trusted, you might as well have this as well," she announced, walking over to Einfari's saddle and pulling off the ax, tossing it out into the open. It landed on the stone with a loud clatter. "There. _Now _I am as defenseless as you assumed I was."

Nóttreiði stared with slightly bulging eyes at the obvious weapon, his gaze slowly moving to the saddle, and then to Einfari, who stared back defiantly.

'You let it be armed, let it hide a danger,' he mumbled, utterly shocked.

'And what of what I am willing to carry?' Einfari repeated. 'She needs her claws and teeth, and I am not stupid enough to deprive her of those on this trip. But apparently she is stupid enough to want you appeased enough to risk death on it,' she griped, casting Heather an unhappy glance. 'If it were up to me, she'd keep both just to spite you.'

'She is dangerous,' Nóttreiði repeated hollowly, staring down at the ax. 'I will not let her be armed.'

"As you wish," Heather remarked. "Maour, if you would take that one too?"

Maour shook his head, walking over to retrieve the ax. "Is his approval really worth this?"

"Yes," she replied without thinking. "It is."

Maour carefully packed the axes, old and new, back into his saddlebag, removing them from sight. "Everyone happy now?"

'No,' Einfari replied.

"I'm not either," Maour agreed. "But I guess I should have been more specific. Nóttreiði, you aren't going to try and toss this bag into the ocean while we sleep, are you? Because we kind of need the other stuff in there."

Maour had certainly come up with a very specific scenario to worry about. Heather was surprised he wasn't questioning Nóttreiði's intentions more seriously than that. She knew she intended to sleep under Einfari's wing tonight, just to be sure Nóttreiði couldn't get to her without waking Einfari. There was no telling how her actions would affect him.

Nóttreiði snarled aimlessly. 'You store the water in there.'

"Yes, and the map, and other thing that could help if someone gets hurt," Maour continued. "I am ordering you not to mess with this saddlebag."

'And I will not, for I have no choice,' Nóttreiði griped. 'But I would not have anyway. We need water.'

'I would not put it past you to take the water out and throw the bag away after,' Toothless remarked. 'Maour is just being careful. You make it necessary.'

'You do not see me objecting to his false claws,' Nóttreiði complained almost petulantly. 'Whether or not he stabs you in the back one day is not my concern. As long as they are not on Einfari, I can live with it.'

'That's a small improvement,' Toothless rumbled softly. He looked out to the horizon, and the glow of the sun that would soon rise behind the clouds. 'Now we should actually get some rest. This trip has only just begun.'

* * *

The next evening came all too soon, and it was time to go again. Heather quickly put Einfari's saddle on. Speaking of saddles…

She had to ask. "Maour, what's in the other saddlebag?" He had only dug through one the previous night, and the other was just as bulky.

'An extra pack-saddle and some spare leather," Maour absently explained. "Just in case-"

'Actually,' Toothless interrupted, 'the other pack-saddle is for Nóttreiði.'

"It is?" It seemed Maour hadn't planned on that. He stared at Toothless in confusion. "Since when?"  
'Since I don't trust him to be unburdened,' Toothless growled, staring at the dragon in question, who was currently stretching, eyeing them suspiciously. 'Besides, it is only fair he carries some of the burden, just like the rest of us.'

'I will not wear that,' Nóttreiði objected strangely calmly. 'And you won't make me.'

Heather held in a sarcastic laugh. Had he forgotten that he had already sworn to obey Maour? Maybe her letting him win on the ax issue had given him false confidence, or maybe he was still addled by the lingering grogginess of waking up.

"Really?" Maour pulled the extra saddle out of Toothless's other saddlebag. "It's looking like I will. Toothless is right, it's only fair."

'And what would you have me carry?' Nóttreiði asked bitterly, his tail lashing at the stone he was standing on. 'You cannot trust I will not "lose" whatever it is. So you won't burden me with anything.'

Heather was almost impressed at how he could manage to sound both smug and bitter at the same time. He was also… not wrong. She certainly wouldn't want to trust anything important to Nóttreiði, and they had only brought things that might be vital.

Maour smiled sarcastically. "I've got a solution to that. You'll carry your portion of the water supply. Something tells me you won't drop that, because if you do, you'll go thirsty, or Einfari will if she chooses to share with you."

Nóttreiði's face fell, and he slowly backed away. 'I'm not wearing that.'

'Then leave,' Toothless growled. 'Everything else aside, I don't want to travel with someone who won't help out when needed.'

That seemed to aggravate Nóttreiði. 'You can tie yourself down all you want, but I am not stupid enough to-'

"It's made to _not_ tie you down or hinder your flight,' Maour interrupted. "And you're not being asked to carry one of us. Just your own supplies."

'If you get separated from us, you may need your own supply of water,' Einfari added. 'The group as a whole will be faster if we are all equally burdened. It is common sense, brother. Deal with it.' Her voice was dripping with disapproval. 'I didn't think you were lazy or selfish, but you are proving me wrong right now.'

'Fine!' Nóttreiði roared angrily. 'Fine! How do I put it on?' He half-ran and half skulked over to Maour, emanating frustration.

Toothless quickly jumped between the two of them. 'You don't, Maour does.' It was _very _clear he didn't like that. 'And if you so much as nip him, I'm tearing your ears off.'

Nóttreiði jumped back, although he seemed more afraid of Maour touching him than of Toothless's threat. 'I don't want-'

'I don't care. We're wasting time.' Einfari stalked up to face Nóttreiði, glaring now. 'Seriously, this is going to happen, like it or not, so let's skip the argument and get on with it so we can go.'

Nóttreiði faltered, shaking his head in denial, but when he did eventually speak, it was in a tone of distaste. 'Make it fast.'

Toothless snarled dangerously. 'Do not move a muscle. I'm serious.' He shoved his face against Nóttreiði's, staring into one of his eyes. 'You _will_ regret it, and you will not come with us if you try anything.'

'I heard you the first time,' Nóttreiði griped.

Heather watched Nóttreiði nervously as Maour quickly and efficiently began to strap the saddle on, moving around Nóttreiði and giving him a wide berth whenever possible. Toothless and Einfari were both watching carefully, and Heather was pretty sure Einfari would be just as harsh as Toothless if Nóttreiði tried anything. Whatever it was about this particular little spat, Einfari was out of patience with her brother, and it showed.

But nothing happened. Maour tightened the last strap, brought over Nóttreiði's portion of the water, and loaded the saddlebag without interruption. Then he stepped back, visibly relaxing. "There, done. It's not meant to be slept in, so I'll need to take it off every morning-'

'No. I'll sleep in it.'

'Enjoy the blisters and raw scales then,' Toothless snorted. 'Believe me, one or two days is fine, but it gets really bad after that. But nobody will force you to be comfortable.'

'He will ask you to take it off as often as needed,' Einfari asserted. 'Now, can we go?'

Heather watched Nóttreiði out of the corner of her eye as they lifted off and got back up into the air. He struggled at first, clearly unused to the weight, but eventually he adjusted, glaring into the distance the entire time.

That was all she had ever seen him doing. Glaring, snarling, barely controlling himself. Was that all there was to him? It couldn't be.

* * *

In the following days, they caught up to the storm, flying into the outskirts because they had no choice. Making it to the next stopover island was mandatory, and they could not wait the time it would take for the storm to move out of the area… only to just catch up again. Trailing behind was the only option if they wanted to get to Berserker island before Dagur had time to act on the news he would be receiving.

That did mean Heather often regretted not having a hooded cloak, because they could not afford to miss an island by flying above the clouds. She made do by pulling her tunic up over her head when it rained, though even doing that was stretching it… She was going to need a new tunic if they spent too many nights in this weather.

But eventually, about a week out, things changed.

'We need to keep going,' Toothless announced. 'This storm is slowing us down-'

'And making us miserable,' Einfari cut in, her voice quick and clipped. She had her eyes partially closed, flying through the slanting rain. Heather knew exactly what Einfari was seeing because she herself had long since buried her face in the damp leather of the saddle, covered the back of her head, and switched over to seeing through Einfari's eyes.

Nóttreiði, flying slightly to the side of Einfari, said nothing. He had been sullen and quiet recently. Einfari insisted that was not normal, but it seemed pretty standard for the side of Nóttreiði Heather knew.

'Can you and Nóttreiði fly for longer than we usually do?' Toothless asked, pulling back to fly on Einfari's other side. 'Maour says the next island is a big one, but we'll need to fly quite a bit further.'

'I can fly as long as you can,' Nóttreiði announced. 'Longer. I have far less weighing me down.'

'After five years, Maour's weight doesn't make a difference to me,' Toothless countered. 'Einfari?'

'I will make it.' Einfari was certain. 'But will we be able to rest there, or will we need to keep going to get out in front of the storm?'

'We will rest a few hours less than normal, and fly longer again the next night if everyone is up for it,' Toothless explained. 'This is a good time to do it, because there is a cluster of islands coming up. Safer if we overestimate our endurance.'

Lightning flashed far in front of them, striking aimlessly through the sky, a single crash and flash of light.

Still, going through it would be better than trailing along behind it for another week straight.

"If you can do it, I am more than fine with getting in front of this miserable weather," Heather remarked, knowing only Einfari would be able to hear her.

'Let's do it!' Einfari roared, defiantly plunging forward to gain a little more speed, forging ahead. The choice had been made. They would go through it.


	12. Chapter 12

Through the storm. It felt like a risky plan, but at this point, Maour was fine with that. Flying through the rain day after day was miserable, but they couldn't risk missing one of the islands they wanted to stop and rest on by flying above the clouds. Splitting the difference and having one below the clouds and the rest above would leave too much to chance.

He almost unconsciously flicked the prosthetic tail to keep up with Toothless as they dove, moving a little lower as they gained speed. He was concerned that the tailfin would begin to rust if they didn't shake this storm soon. He had replacement parts for the tailfin safely and dryly tucked away in the saddlebag, but he would rather not use them so soon with so far to go.

At first, flying through the storm as opposed to lingering on its outskirts did not seem to change much. The rain was a bit heavier, the wind a bit stronger, but that was all. Lightning flashed in the distance, gradually drifting closer.

They passed the small island they would have stopped at without comment, pushing forward. Now, they had to keep going because there was no more land until their next stop.

Hours of flight, of cold and wet endurance. It was almost worse for Maour than Toothless because Toothless at least stayed warm from the exertion of flying.

Eventually, the next island came up in the distance, a heavily-forested hunk of rock jutting out of the dark and choppy ocean. The group landed on the shore, the dragons among them panting heavily, and moved inland, seeking shelter.

Maour had dismounted, not wanting to burden Toothless any more than he had to. They spread out a little bit, looking for somewhere to rest. Maour and Heather weren't as exhausted as the dragons, but they were very eager to find a dry spot for the first time in what seemed forever, so they broke off together to cover more ground.

Now was a good time, he supposed, to ask something that had been bothering him. "Heather?"

Heather turned to face him, wiping water off of her face. "What is it?"  
"Why did you show Nóttreiði your other ax?" It didn't make sense. "You needed that."

"This again?" Heather sounded confused. "Maour, it has been a week since I did that. Why bring it up now?"  
"Well, we might not be alone here," he explained. "And you're voluntarily separating yourself from Einfari. You're vulnerable."

"You have a weapon," Heather countered, ducking under the somewhat effective cover of a stout tree. "So I'm not totally vulnerable."

"I still think you should take one of them when Nóttreiði isn't looking," Maour asserted. "I can give one to you today, when he's asleep." He had not wanted to risk that before, because Nóttreiði might be watching, faking sleep, but after the extra-long trip, Nóttreiði would be too tired to do that this time.

"Maour… no." Heather shook her head decisively. "I want him to trust me. Smuggling a weapon under his nose, on his sister's back, when he thinks I voluntarily gave it up? The second I pulled it out, I could wave goodbye to any chance of him ever coming around."

"And if you couldn't pull it out, you could wave goodbye to life," Maour countered. "I speak from experience when I say it's possible to live on our island without getting on Nóttreiði's good side."

"You were not sharing a-" Heather cut herself off before continuing. "Not sharing a cave with him."

What was she going to say originally? He had a guess, but it was an optimistic one.

"Besides, I will be fine," she continued stubbornly, forging ahead through the intermittent rain and wet foliage. "All of these islands have been-"  
She stopped suddenly, freezing mid-step, one hand on a tree and the other hanging limp by her side.

"Don't move," she whispered. "How aggressive are wild dragons, exactly?"

Oh, that was fine. Maour smiled, slowly moving forward despite her warning, intent on getting a look. "Actually, it's fine. They tend to be less hostile once they hear me." The novelty of him apparently speaking mentally and verbally, a side-effect of the link Heather was still a few months away from developing, generally disarmed wild dragons quite effectively.

He moved up beside Heather and looked out upon the small clearing she had almost stumbled into. Within, a grey and blue-tinged dragon lay with its back to them. It was not one he knew, shaped like a Monstrous Nightmare but much larger and with far more wicked-looking claws on its two large hind legs, and a subtly different head shape.

Yes, this was fine. "Maybe they know where we can find shelter," he muttered quietly to Heather.

"We should _not_ wake it," she hissed back. "Maybe it wants a snack!"

"They don't eat us, generally speaking," he reassured her. "At least, most don't." Memory of being taken by a Changewing intent on exactly that so long ago made him a little more cautious… but this was not a Changewing.

Still, best to be careful. He accessed his brother's senses and waited the moment it took Toothless to notice and tune in. "We're going to ask a dragon if they know anywhere to shelter from the storm."  
'You found someone?" Toothless asked curiously. "Where are they?'  
"East of where we split up," Maour directed. "Lying in a clearing."

'Wait, why do you think they would know where to take shelter if they are not doing so?'

Maour shrugged. "Maybe they like the rain?"

The dragon stirred. 'Maybe I liked the quiet.' Her voice was irritated. 'Maybe I do not need two Terrible Terrors asking for directions. Just hide under a bush.'

Terrible Terrors? Well, she could not see them… but Terrors did not talk, so she must be insulting them. "I'm a little too big to hide under a bush," he objected. "But we are sorry for disturbing you."

Toothless hummed uneasily. 'I do not know that kind of dragon,' he remarked, now using Maour's vision, 'but something about it makes me uneasy.'

Just as Toothless said that the mystery dragon shifted, arching her neck to look over at Maour and Heather. Her grey eyes narrowed, though unlike most dragons she did not seem particularly concerned at first sight.

'You are not Terrors,' she agreed. 'Your kind hunts mine, or tries to.' She growled confidently. 'Are you here to die?'

"No, definitely not," Maour reassured her, stepping into the open and showing he was not armed. Heather stood behind him. "We are just looking for shelter."

'Does your friend not talk?' the dragon inquired. 'Why you and not her? Why you at all?'

An intelligent question. "She is not… old enough," he improvised, not wanting to get into the complexities of the link. "A few months from now she will be able to, but for now she talks like all other humans."

"Not old enough," Heather muttered rebelliously. "Somehow, I feel insulted." She wiped her face, squinting into the rain now driven into their faces by the steady wind.

'And you are not humans,' the dragon continued. 'Those run, or attack and die.' She was sure of that. 'They do not speak.'

"Well, actually, we _are _humans," he clarified. "We'd rather befriend than fight."

'Oh, good, I do not need to kill you. You are not my preferred prey anyway,' the dragon sighed in relief. 'I would save my power for those I must kill.'

That set off a few alarm bells in Maour's head, though he tried not to let it show. Power, for instance, was a strange term for a dragon to use instead of fire, and speaking of those she 'must kill' was worryingly indicative of-

"Maour, what is she?" Heather whispered, forgetting that she would not be understood anyway. "She spoke of power of some sort. Don't dragons use fire?"

'What does she say?' the female dragon inquired curiously, looking over at Heather. 'You say she speaks in her own language.'

"She was wondering what you meant by power," Maour improvised, worried now. "Do you breathe fire?"

'No, of course not,' the female chortled. 'Why do you think I am here?' Bright arcs of white light crackled briefly from her scales and talons, confirming Maour's worst fears. 'This storm is my ally, though it thinks not. We search for prey together, and it keeps me at top strength.'

'Run!' Toothless commanded, his voice cold and scared. 'Politely get out of her sight and then run. We are coming, but you need to get away from her.'

"Your prey?" Maour asked sidling backward. By the way Heather was also retreating, Einfari had relayed a similar message.

'Not you, I just said that,' the dragon, or Skrill as Hiccup suddenly realized, reassured them. 'I only hunt one thing, and you are not it.' She moved closer, staring curiously. 'You know of the dark dragons who skulk in shadows and use blue fire? Those are my prey, and you are clearly nothing of the sort.'

"Why do you hunt them?" Maour asked urgently, disguising it as an innocent question. This could be huge. Nobody knew if the Skrill had a reason, given they always attacked on sight, no matter how suicidal that could be. He was uniquely positioned to get an unguarded, calm answer.

'They are usurpers and traitors,' the female growled, abruptly growing angry. So much for a calm answer. 'Wiping them out of this world is our duty.'

He knew the term 'usurper' was used by Skrill for Night Furies through hearsay from those who survived fighting Skrill, but traitors? "Who did they betray?"

'Everyone,' she replied, sighing sadly, moving closer still as if to confide in him. 'They led-'

Too close. Her nose was too close, and the wind had shifted. She froze, inhaling deeply.

Lightning flashed across the sky, dividing it into two. Toothless howled in his mind for him to run, for him to not let her any closer, to strike out with his Scythe if he could, anything. Heather scrambled away behind him, catching on that the deception was over.

'And I was almost beginning to like you,' the female sighed, pulling back. 'You associate with them. They lead more astray, even here. I will be kind and make your death as painless as possible.' Energy flared from her body, flashing over her, making her almost painful to look at.

"Wait!" Maour cried out, stumbling back into a tree. "Why?!"

'It is why I am here,' she declared, the white flaring energy gathering in her talons as she stalked forward. 'My kind work to cleanse this world of the traitors we failed to stop long ago. You are with them, so you must die with them.'

Okay, time to run. He was not so suicidal as to try reasoning with her when she was so enraged. He ran, slipping behind a tree and through the undergrowth, his speed aided by years of practice. Running like this was something he was genuinely good at, like using his Scythe or making things. It was almost pleasant to run, though the rain and _murderous Skrill_ behind him did sap the fun out of it.

'Head South,' Toothless instructed hurriedly. 'The shore is that way, and I will be able to see you as soon as we both get there. Heather is on her way, though it is far slower.'

That made sense. He couldn't hear the Skrill behind him… but there was no way she had given up without even trying. It was far too-

An explosion of sound rocked him, a wave of force like wind amplified into a solid object sending him careening into a tree.

He stumbled back up, his ears ringing, to see a smoldering hole in the forest to his right, small fires dying as the rain smothered them.

Move. He needed to keep moving. She was blasting the forest from above. How did she know where he was?  
As he ran, that question was answered by more blasts in all directions. She didn't know where he was, and was destroying at random, trying to drive him out into the open. It wouldn't work… if there was no storm.

He caught a glance of her as he passed below a small opening in the tree canopy. Lightning was striking her, lancing from the clouds and hitting her to no visible effect. Was there any limit to how much she could destroy, powered by the weather?

He recalled something Toothless had conveyed long ago. Skrill were most dangerous in storms. This must be why. They had absolutely no shot limit in this weather if such a thing usually applied to them at all.

'Forget the beach, it will see you,' Toothless panted. 'Einfari went after Heather. Can you give me any idea where you are?'

Maour stopped for a moment, hating to be any more vulnerable than he already was. The forest was the same on all sides. There were no good landmarks that would be visible from more than ten steps away, obscured by the chaotic undergrowth. "No. What about you?"

'I'm in the trees just by the shore, alone,' Toothless relayed. 'I guess you should keep heading to the beach, but whatever you do, don't go into the open.'

Maour resumed his run, flinching at every fresh blast echoing through the trees. "What do we do once we get into the air? She will see us for sure."

'Fight, because we're not getting away, not in this storm. But first, we need to get to each other.'

Fight… something hit him. "Toothless, where is Nóttreiði?" Clearly not in the air, as the Skrill was still hunting them in the forest as opposed to fighting a Night Fury.

'No idea,' Toothless remarked. 'I don't know what he's doing.'

"You would think," Maour wheezed, skidding to a halt right by the treeline, "that he would love the chance to vent some anger. I'm here."

'Where, exactly?' Toothless asked. 'Never mind, I see you.'

Maour turned to see his brother slinking through the trees, glancing up every few steps. The blasts were still randomly hitting the forest, and the Skrill was howling now, utterly enraged.

Toothless wasted no time with sappy reunions and nudged Maour towards his saddle. 'Get up there. I do not know if Einfari has found Heather yet, and we need to get that Skrill's attention off of the ground.'

"No argument here," Maour muttered, climbing into the saddle and hunching over, making his form as flat as possible to aid in speed- and to make it less likely he'd get hit. "But this might be hard. The storm is going to be an issue."

'Mom took one out on her own, so three dragons and two humans should be able to do the same here,' Toothless countered.

"She also got driven a huge distance from home and right into the Queen's thralls," Maour objected. "I don't think we want to compare this to that!"

'Too late!' Toothless laughed, flinging them into the sky, up and out of any semblance of cover. 'Now let's get her attention.'

"Done," Maour shouted as they abruptly spun to the side, avoiding a blast of lightning that originated from the Skrill, as opposed to the clouds it should normally come from.

The Skrill let up in her attack on the now scarred and smoldering forest, screeching with a strange hum underlying what would otherwise be a normal sound. She dove for them, her talons buzzing with dangerous crackling lightning. To be grabbed would be very bad, and clearly she was aiming for exactly that.

Death. She wanted them dead, no compromise whatsoever. Why? There was no way to get any further explanation now.

Toothless swerved around, maneuvering slightly faster and more effectively than the much larger dragon. 'She's big enough to grab and carry me with no problem. How is she this fast?!'

"Blame the storm, that's what I'm doing," Maour quipped, unsheathing his Scythe. "Can you outfly her?"

'Honestly… maybe not!' Toothless dropped abruptly, a bolt of lightning passing over them both. 'Not like this. Dodging slows me down.'

"We could use some backup," Maour said, stating the obvious. He took a quick look behind them, staring directly into the Skrill's eyes. Murderous rage, and nothing more. But she had been, if not lighthearted, at least pleasant right until she smelled Night Fury on him…

Her mouth opened, and he ducked, instinctively folding in his side of the tailfin just in time. A strong blast of lightning struck through the air where his head had been.

They pulled out just above the trees, swerving wildly to try and gain some distance.

'We need to stop fleeing!' Toothless roared desperately, flying as fast as he could. 'I'm going to turn and charge it!'

Maour knew what Toothless wanted. He held his Scythe with one of the sharp blades pointed up. "Under or over her?"

'Over,' Toothless replied hastily. 'Those talons look bad.'

Definitely, but he couldn't strike at her from above. He put the Scythe away, concentrating solely on the tailfin. They were going to need to be-

A blast impacted behind them, a encouragingly familiar one, followed by a screech from the Skrill. Einfari had entered the fray.

Einfari and Heather, Maour saw as they pulled up and turned, the Skrill no longer chasing them, turning to engage Einfari. Nóttreiði was still nowhere to be found.

'About time!' Toothless growled confidently. 'Now we can really stop running.'

They pulled up, gaining height as the Skrill was distracted. Einfari was holding her own by a small margin, avoiding the myriad of lightning blasts coming from the Skrill while firing her own plasma shots back. The Skrill took the brunt of each blast, powering through them and forcing Einfari back.

Toothless reentered the fray, strafing the Skrill from above. He and Einfari worked together, attacking from all angles, flying around her. She could not strike at them both at once, and to commit to pursuing one meant being vulnerable to the other. Simply put, she was outnumbered.

Her response to that realization was to go after Einfari anyway, ignoring any other threats. Einfari turned tail and fled, Heather on her back, baiting the Skrill.

'We get one shot at this,' Toothless called back as they gained on both dragons, pulling up above them. 'I'm going to slam her into the trees.'

It was a dangerous plan, but Maour had no better ideas. "Carefully."

'How is that even possible?' Toothless asked rhetorically as they dove, angling through the air, Toothless pulling in his wings to move as fast as possible, a black streak against the grey clouds and driving rain.

The Skrill never even looked up, intent on Einfari and Heather. Maour caught a glimpse of Heather's terrified face right before Toothless hit the Skrill, plowing into her from above.

Maour involuntarily closed his eyes as the impact rocked him, gripping the saddle so hard it felt like his fingers were going to break. There was a familiar lightness to his stomach that meant they were falling again-

And then a second impact, far more powerful than the first, the slapping of branches against him, and a third, final shock, a wooden crunch that followed a split second of sliding.

All on top of the Skrill, who took the brunt of every hit. There was quiet for a few moments, before the sound of a tree creaking and falling, a reverbrating thud that was oddly muted and followed by a wet crack.

_Then _all was quiet, aside from infrequent thunder and the pattering of rain on scale, leaf, and mud.

Maour forced his eyes open, blinking away the specks of mud covering his face, and as he saw through slowly clearing vision, all of the saddle and Toothless. Under them was the slowly crackling body of the Skrill, motionless.

Toothless stirred, half-walking and half-falling off of the Skrill, stumbling away from her. 'It's not… not dead yet.'

No, she was not, though she was well on that path, mutilated and broken by the impacts. The tree had collapsed on her wing, breaking the leading edge. There was a short ditch plowed by the Skrill's underside from the fall, her path halted by that same tree. She was broken, her body almost bent around the stump. It was a brutal scene…

And Maour felt nothing but pity in that moment. In a way, this was exactly how he had met Toothless, so long ago. Knocked out of the sky, injured, defeated.

Einfari landed next to Toothless, her mouth slightly open, a blue glow indicating that she was ready to fire in an instant.

Maour took a step forward, towards the Skrill.

'Maour-'

"She's not going to hurt me." How could she, broken like that? He wasn't even sure she was conscious. He came closer, careful not to touch her directly, kneeling by her head. Her eyes were closed. "We didn't want to fight."

One large, grey eye rolled open, bloodshot and unfocused. A spasm wracked her body, white-hot flashes arced across her spines and between her scales. Was she going to say something? It looked like it, as her eye focused on him.

Then she lurched forward, snapping at him, her massive and deadly jaws clumsily knocking him aside as she tried to bite him in half. He scrambled back, terrified, and she threw herself after him, the tree pinning her wing barely holding her down for the moment. Her body struggled, mutilated though it was, in a way that was painful to watch.

Two plasma blasts slammed into her, but she kept going, still trying to pull herself out from under the tree, trying to kill even while majorly injured.

Einfari leapt forward and bit into the Skrill's neck, shaking it. Electricity fizzled around her for a few brief moments before there was a wet tearing sound-

Maour felt sick. He turned away, not wanting to look at what they had done. It was self-defense, it was necessary, but he couldn't help but think that there had to be a better way.

"Einfari?" Heather asked worriedly. "You can let go now."  
'I… can't…' Einfari replied, her voice unmuffled because she did not speak physically.

Maour turned back to look despite himself, focusing on the fact that Einfari's body was tense, her grip on the Skrill's now somewhat torn neck was strong. What did she mean?

'Can't open my mouth... help,' she requested with a small amount of panic, beginning to struggle and pull away, still biting down. Small sparks crackled around where she was biting, dying out but not gone yet.

Toothless moved forward, grabbing onto Einfari's wingarm with toothless gums and pulling. The two struggled for a brief moment before the Skrill's neck gave. Einfari tumbled back with a chunk of bloody flesh and scale in her mouth, which she promptly spit out.

"What was that?" Heather asked, eyeing the Skrill's body suspiciously. "It's dead, right?"

'I have no idea how that happened,' Einfari whined. 'My jaw hurts and I feel numb.'

"Are you going to be okay?" The concern in Heather's voice was obvious as she moved over Einfari.

'I will be fine,' Einfari huffed. 'I'm not doing that again if we ever run into another Skrill. It shocked me the instant I bit down.' She turned to stare at Maour. 'Next time, don't get so close.'

"We should have killed it as soon as we saw it was not dead yet,' Toothless agreed.

He didn't like hearing that from Toothless. "There's something to be said for mercy, Toothless."

'For a dragon that tried to kill you the moment she knew you hung around our kind?' Toothless growled at the corpse. 'She almost got you because we didn't finish her.'

They would discuss this later, when they were not standing around in the rain by a dead body. "We'll talk about it later. Right now, we need to… well, keep looking for shelter." The whole ordeal with the Skrill had almost driven why they were here out of his head entirely.

'And my brother,' Einfari remarked. 'Where did he go, anyway?'

'Okay, that's really strange,' Toothless agreed. 'Is Nóttreiði the kind of dragon to run from-'

Einfari burst out laughing, a truly amused sound contrasting the somber scene. Even Heather cracked a smile. 'Nóttreiði is not one to run from anything, ever.'

"So… where is he?" Maour didn't really like Nóttreiði, but it was a little worrying that the antagonistic dragon had apparently disappeared. "There was only one Skrill here, right?"

An uneasy silence fell over them at that question.

"This one didn't talk about another Skrill…" Heather ventured uncertainly.

'But he might have run into something else,' Einfari countered. 'He didn't fly, because the Skrill would have attacked as soon as it saw him, so he's on the ground somewhere.'

'We need to split up again to look for him,' Toothless agreed reluctantly.

'I'll go with Maour,' Einfari replied.

Everyone stared at her in confusion.

'What?' she defended. 'It's the smartest way to split up. We want to be in communication, but sending Maour and Heather off together almost got them killed. This way, both groups can talk to each other, but both also have a dragon with them.'

"She's right," Heather agreed. "I don't know how to work Toothless's tailfin, so if we get into trouble we're stuck on the ground, but it's still the best option."

"Okay, got it." He couldn't exactly object, it was just a little odd. "When did he first wander off?"

'I don't know when, exactly,' Einfari admitted. 'Right after I saw the lightning through Heather's eyes and told her it was a Skrill. He must have heard me say that, because by the time I came back to my own sight to get to her, he was gone. I didn't have time to look for him.'

'Okay,' Toothless decided, 'we'll just search everywhere. Heather and I will look from the ground, and Maour, I guess you and Einfari can look from above.' He sounded only mildly unhappy about that. Maour sometimes rode Von or other Svarturs if the need arose, so it wasn't unheard of, but it was still unusual. Necessity forced it in this case.

And so, Maour found himself searching the forest from Einfari's back, scanning the treetops below for a flash of black. It was still wet and cold, wind and rain conspiring to make them miserable. Einfari called Nóttreiði's name every once in a while, but she made no actual noise. It was a somewhat pointless precaution, given other dragons were just as likely to hear her calling mentally, but she did it nonetheless.

In between calls, however, there was an almost awkward silence.

Eventually, he had to break it. "So… how are things for you?"

Einfari cast him an unamused stare. 'At the moment, terrible. My brother is missing, I'm cold, and we might still be in danger. You?'

"Same," he muttered, rebuffed. Maybe silence was better right now.

Einfari, on the other hand, seemed to prefer talking. 'Why did you do that?'

Maour had a brief flashback to earlier that night, asking Heather the same question about a different situation. "You'll have to be more specific."

'Getting close to the Skrill once we had downed it,' Einfari clarified. 'That was stupid, and you are not stupid by any means.'

How to explain the brief flash of pity? Maybe she would understand if he just voiced his feelings. "It felt like the right thing to do. She was fine at first… I don't like what we did." No matter how fast, unintentional, or necessary some of it was, they had chosen to strike instead of attempting to flee.

'I do,' Einfari growled, surprising him. 'It admitted to hunting us. It spoke as if it was experienced, and Skrill attacks always end in the death of hunter or hunted, so that means it has killed others of our kind before.'

He had not made that connection… but it didn't really make him feel any better. "There should be a better way."

'Is that what you risked your life for?' Einfari warbled curiously, briefly breaking the conversation to call out her brother's name. 'What did you think would happen?'

"I wanted to understand," he admitted. "I don't get _why_, and it doesn't look like I'm ever going to find out without taking some risks, if they'll all attack the moment they smell me." Next time, he would be smarter about it.

'Don't try,' Einfari advised absently. 'Why does not matter, as they do not stop. Risking your life to understand will change nothing.'

He didn't agree with that at all. "Last time I decided to risk my life to understand a dragon, it worked out pretty well." Sometimes, risks were worth taking.

It was a moot point, one he could figure out if it ever became relevant. Skrill were rare, thankfully.

'Nóttreiði!' Einfari called out, a hint of worrying evident in her voice. They flew close to the treetops. 'Where is he?'

A few minutes later, Toothless accessed Maour's hearing. 'We found him.'

"Really?" Maour ignored Einfari, who was responding to Heather, likely holding a very similar conversation. He accessed Toothless's sense of sight.

A small hollow, a ravine of sorts, one that had been struck directly. Three trees, all bearing scorch marks and entirely separated from their stumps lay across the ravine, forming a bridge of sorts…

"Where?" He couldn't see any signs of Nóttreiði.

'Look under the fallen trees,' Toothless directed in a heavy voice. 'Heather is climbing down now. I can't fit. We'll know more once she gets down there, but it doesn't look good.'

Maour focused on the place Toothless had indicated, though thanks to how the link worked he could not actually focus his vision. There was-

There was a barely-visible hint of a black wing, pinned under the fallen logs on the edge of the ravine. It was impossible to tell from this angle what the situation was under the trees, in the ravine itself, thanks to the layout of the terrain. Toothless couldn't get close enough to look over the edge without risking sliding in himself, as the ground was slick mud.

Maour's mind quickly put the pieces together. He felt Einfari turn and speed towards the scene. Nóttreiði was in real trouble.

They arrived quickly, before Heather even made it down to the bottom. Einfari set down as close to the edge as she dared, wrapping her tail around a tree to anchor her as she landed, her paws sliding dangerously on the mud.

Maour hopped off, grabbing the same tree. "Heather, what's going on down there?"

"Hang on, it's hard to go anywhere without falling headfirst," Heather called back. "The knives from your saddlebag aren't much help."

"They weren't intended for climbing," Maour remarked, "and how did you know I had those?" He had only brought them in case ropes got inextricably tangled or some other edge case.

"Does that matter?" A brief pause ensued. "Okay, I'm down at the bottom."

'How is he?' EInfari asked anxiously.

"He's dangling by the pinned wing," Heather reported. "The only reason he didn't fall the rest of the way is that part of him is resting on a ledge in the side of the ravine. If we move the fallen trees, he falls, but if we don't, he's stuck. I think he's still breathing, but he's definitely not conscious."

Dangling by a wing… Maour winced. "How much weight is on the wing holding him up?"

"I can't tell, but it's a lot," Heather shouted back. "The place where his wing meets his back looks weird."

They needed to get him down as soon as they could. He was hanging by a likely dislocated wing. "How far is the drop?"

"Not far, but he might fall head-first."

'Okay,' Toothless interrupted, 'so do we pull him up or lower him down?' He inched closer to the ravine, ready to do whatever was needed.

That question helped Maour focus on what they needed to do. "Up. If we lower him down, he's stuck at the bottom of that ravine." It was narrow and twisted, and very likely would be a nightmare to get Nóttreiði out of later if he couldn't climb out himself.

'I'll shift the fallen trees once you've got a grip,' Einfari volunteered, shuffling over towards the trees. Her paws squished mud in every direction as she moved, sinking a little into it with every sliding step.

'I can get a grip if I know what I'm grabbing,' Toothless agreed. 'Wait for me to be sure I've got him.'

"Heather, is there anything you can see that might snag Nóttreiði when Einfari moves the trees?" Maour called down to her. He was feeling annoyingly helpless, but climbing down to join Heather would be pointless. She was smart and observant enough to do whatever needed to be done down there.

"Yes, there are some branches in bad spots," Heather reported. "Move the fallen trees to the… right, from Einfari's perspective," she directed.

'Got it. Toothless?'

They waited as Toothless secured himself by Nóttreiði's wing and maneuvered around to bite down on the leading edge. 'Ready. Be quick, I will need to start pulling up as soon as possible. He's not going to be light.'

Maour didn't bother asking if Toothless could do it. If he couldn't, he wouldn't place himself in a position to fail. He did, on the other hand, worry about Toothless overestimating his strength… but there was nothing he could do.

'On three,' Einfari huffed, setting her side against the fallen trees and digging her paws deeper into the mud. 'One, two… three!'

Einfari began pushing, shifting the trees. Because she was pushing from the other side, Toothless's end didn't move as much as hers did, but it was moving nonetheless.

Toothless began pulling up, straining with a long and steady growl. Nóttreiði's limp body began to slide into view, wet and splattered with mud, as Toothless pulled back, fighting for every inch. First came the wing, and then the lump that was Nóttreiði's torso, sliding limply across the muddy edge of the ravine.

'Heather, are you clear? I want to shove these in once Nóttreiði is out,' EInfari panted. 'If I let go, they'll fall right back onto him.' She had lifted the logs up and out of a muddy depression they would roll right back into if she faltered.

"I'm under a ledge," Heather agreed, "so go for it."

Meanwhile, Toothless was still pulling Nóttreiði, now trying to get the unconscious dragon up onto solid ground, out of the slippery mud. The moment Nóttreiði's body fully cleared the ravine itself, Einfari shoved one final time and knocked her end of the broken trees into the ravine. A loud crash was heard, and the logs settled into the mud on Toothless's end, a slanting ladder down into the depths.

'I've almost got him,' Toothless grunted, still straining. 'Einfari, can you jump across and help me?'

'I might slip,' she admitted, flaring her wings, 'but I can try.'

'No, I've got it,' Toothless corrected, wedging Nóttreiði's chest between two close trees as he pulled back. 'This should be good enough.'

"I'm coming up," Heather called up. "It might take a few minutes. Everything is wet and slippery."

"Be careful." Maour considered the ravine separating him and Einfari from Toothless and Nóttreiði. "Einfari, can I hitch a ride over to the other side?"

'Of course.' She let him onto her back before flying up and over, landing in another small clearing on the other side and walking back to Toothless.

Maour dismounted and immediately went to Nóttreiði. He couldn't do much without climbing on the unconscious dragon, given the lower half of his body was lying on the mud, but even from here he could see the dislocated wing-shoulder. It didn't look good, though so far it seemed to be Nóttreiði's only visible injury.

'Now what?' Toothless asked tiredly. 'We only have a few hours before we have to leave if we want to get ahead of the storm…'

'Rest,' Einfari replied tiredly. 'Nóttreiði needs to wake up before we can get him out of here, and he probably won't be able to fly when that happens. We aren't getting ahead of the storm, and there is no shelter on this stupid island.' She kicked angrily at a small bush. 'So we just have to sleep in the rain and wait.'

"Fine by me," Heather panted, slogging carefully through the mud on Nóttreiði's other side, a muddy and bent knife in either hand.

"We wait," Maour concluded. This entire attempt at getting in front of the storm had been a disaster, from start to finish. No shelter, a Skrill, and now this. They would be lucky if Nóttreiði's dislocated wing could be fixed well enough for him to fly on it without issue, and they only barely had a few days to spare if they wanted to be sure Maour's message to Dagur got to him before he had a chance to act on the information that Heather had been taken from his men.

_**Author's Note: **_**To **_**Nghtmarem00n, **_**who commented:**

'_**They're gonna run into a skrill.'**_

**Congratulations, you were correct. I did drop quite a few hints, and thematically storms aren't a good thing… but still, you called it without hesitation. Nice. As to where things go from here though… far more unknowns and options.**

**And one more unknown. Next chapter will come out a day early, on Wednesday, and as of now I don't know exactly how the next three months or so are going to work beyond that. I'll be keeping as best I can to a weekly schedule, and I'm leaning towards moving this story to post on the same day as **_**When Nothing Remains**_**, so Saturdays. No matter what, I'll be keeping both stories up to date in terms of overall progress, so if a chapter is late, know that I'll bring things back up to speed in one way or another. I'll be almost entirely wifi-free this Summer, so replies to reviews and other such things will be similarly sporadic. And no matter what, I'll be returning everything to normal schedule-wise before the end of August, though I hope there won't be much to fix at that point. We'll see how things go.**


	13. Chapter 13

_**Author's Note: **_**To my readers... sorry, I've got to take an off week. I had absolutely no access to wifi, and the next chapter has yet to be beta-read (or even fully rewritten to my satisfaction). Next week I will be continuing with or without beta approval, which may mean minor changes to chapters after they are posted, as my beta gets to them and offers his excellent advice. I'll be sure to note in new author's notes like this one what changed for anyone who read it pre-correction.**

**(And for the record, I fixed a total of one typo in this chapter. Thanks for pointing that out, _toothlessgolfer_, it gives me a way to demonstrate what I mean by recording future corrections in author's notes, though typos won't make the official list going forward.)**

Rain fell steadily in the hours it took Nóttreiði to regain consciousness. Toothless and Einfari had ended up falling into exhausted slumber on either side of the injured dragon's head, wings extended to cover each other, if only partially. They probably would have tried to shelter more than Nóttreiði's head, but the two trees he was wedged between were by his front legs, preventing them from covering any more than his head and neck from where they were lying. Maour sat idly under Toothless's other wing, toying with one of the two knives Heather had bent in getting down to the bottom of the ravine.

She had pretty much wrecked both of them, rendering them useless until Maour could fix them at a forge. She felt a little bad about that, but it wasn't really her fault. The knives had been somewhat helpful in her impatient state of mind.

Impatient, because she did actually care. That was only a small surprise by now. Maour had been right in saying giving up her ax and refusing to take it back secretly was a risk, and the only reason she would take such a risk was if she believed the reward was worth it. As the reward was only Nóttreiði's possible trust, she must care enough to value that.

She spared Nóttreiði's prone form a worried look. His wing shoulder still looked odd, but he was in an awkward position, and neither of the other dragons had been up for moving him further. If they were going to do something about it, whatever that would be, it was going to have to wait.

Like they were waiting now. She leaned back against Einfari's side, listening to the rain, to the storm the Skrill had traveled with.

The Skrill… Berserkers were bad, but that dragon had been far worse in those terrifying moments, drawing in lightning and directing it at them with wild abandon, chasing them doggedly. Chasing, just like every other danger in her life.

This time though, it would not continue the chase. She was glad it was dead. One less horror hunting her.

A low groan broke the monotony of the rain, a deep and pained rumble. Nóttreiði stirred sluggishly.

Maour shared a knowing look with her and put the knives away.

She gestured to Einfari and mouthed a silent question. Should they wake the dragons?

He nodded reluctantly. It would be too dangerous to try and talk to Nóttreiði when he was pained and possibly disoriented.

She prodded Einfari, eliciting an unhappy rumble. "He is waking."

Einfari stirred, stretching her wings until one hit a tree. 'Really?'

Nóttreiði growled, his tone pained and angry. 'Einfari…'

Einfari's eyes slid open as she realized that Heather was totally serious. She shuffled around, keeping a wing over Heather as she turned to face her brother. 'Don't move. You had an accident.'

'Doesn't matter…' his eyes slid open, though they remained unfocused, not really seeing as he tried in vain to move. 'Skrill to kill, no time for accidents…'

'It is dead, and there is nothing to fight,' Einfari informed him sternly. 'You should get up, but your wing-'

Nóttreiði's injured wing shifted, and he snarled, his eyes focusing and narrowing into slits. After a moment in which nothing much changed, he collapsed.

'You have this, Einfari?' Toothless asked, watching warily. 'We need his cooperation to fix that wing shoulder.'

'I will fix myself,' Nóttreiði grunted, forcing himself up and forward once more.

'You can't,' Einfari objected. 'Let us help.'

'No.' Nóttreiði pushed out from between the trees holding him, scraping his sides against them- and pulling his injured wing. He collapsed yet again, a quiet whine barely escaping him.

'Nóttreiði,' Einfari snarled warningly. 'You have done this before, with the pack saddle. Nótts do not make the same mistake twice.'

Nóttreiði lapsed into pained silence. Eventually, he nodded, eyes narrow.

Heather gestured aimlessly towards his wing. "So, how..?"

"How do we help?" Maour stepped out from under Toothless's wing, examining the problem from a safe distance. "I've been thinking about that. Basically, we have to pull his wing back into place. That's the only way I know to fix a dislocated shoulder, and this is _basically _the same thing…" He didn't sound that sure.

'And if you cannot fix it..?' Einfari asked worriedly.

'He's grounded,' Toothless supplied.

"We can try and fix it, and there shouldn't be any issues if we can get it back into place," Maour concluded. "Heather, Toothless, I'll need your help. Nóttreiði, this is going to hurt."

No response. Nóttreiði definitely heard him, he just didn't say anything. Strange, and a bit worrying.

"Heather, we need to pull that," and with that Maour pointed at the oddly-shaped lump under Nóttreiði's scales and skin, the shoulder that seemed stretched, "back to match the other side. Toothless will pull the wing. We'll be guiding it back into place."

"So we sit on his back and pull," she decided. "Anything else?" If this was to be done, they should get on with it.

'You know to not throw them off or hurt them,' Toothless shot at Nóttreiði as he moved over to stand by Nóttreiði's wing, prepared to pull as needed.

'Shut up, I know what you want,' Nóttreiði gritted, closing his eyes. 'Just do it.'

That was easier than Heather had expected, but it made sense if he was in serious pain. It was impossible to tell with him. He always acted aggravated and aggressive, so she couldn't really judge any specific mood.

Einfari very deliberately placed a paw on her brother's forehead, not pressing down very hard. 'I will help make sure you do not throw them off,' she remarked, not really asking for permission. 'No snapping at them when they do it.'

Heather clambered up onto Nóttreiði's back, putting most of her weight onto the saddle he still wore. Maour joined her, perching awkwardly, closer to Nóttreiði's neck. He put a hand on the outer edge of the distended joint, indicating from where and in what direction they should pull. Slightly up and then in.

"On three," Maour said, tensing in anticipation. "Ready?"  
"Ready," she confirmed.

'So am I,' Toothless announced.

"One… two… three!"

She didn't hold back. Doing this once was going to be bad enough, and Nóttreiði would not be happy with them failing. So she pulled at the wing shoulder with all the strength she could muster, leaning back and using her legs-

It moved, not popping back into place so much as sliding and shifting back with a _very _disturbing crack that Nóttreiði's ear-splitting howl didn't manage to completely drown out. Overbalanced from her pull, Heather fell off his back and landed on her side in a puddle, drenching herself even more thoroughly than the rain had.

Einfari was pushing down now, holding her brother to the ground. 'It's over, you're fine, you're okay,' she reassured him frantically, not letting up. 'Maour, get off before he throws you!'

'I've got you,' Toothless asserted, darting around and grabbing Maour with his mouth, pulling him away from a safe angle, avoiding Nóttreiði's good wing. 'Let him up.'

Einfari leaped away from her brother. He immediately sprung out from between the trees, running forward and straight into another tree, almost bouncing off, roaring all the way. It was an almost comical display, only made unamusing by the cause.

Then he took to the sky, awkwardly crashing through the canopy and flying away.

"He shouldn't be flying on that!" Maour remarked, hastily getting into Toothless's saddle. "It might just pop right back out again so soon after being put back."

'So he might fall right out of the sky,' Einfari barked, nudging Heather towards her own saddle. 'We need to be ready to catch him.'

The two Furies and their riders were quickly up into the air, and easily spotted Nóttreiði. He was flying out to sea.

'I think he took a hit to the head,' Einfari grumbled as they strained to catch up with Nóttreiði, who was flying full-tilt.

"It didn't look like it," Heather said, personally unsure. "His head was pretty untouched." She had seen scratches and what might be bruises on the skin between Nóttreiði's scales, but not on his head.

'Before this. He's been acting stupid and strange this whole trip,' Einfari continued. 'I'd like to think there's a better reason than stubbornness.'

They pulled up beside Nóttreiði, who was staring straight ahead, flying out over open water. Einfari veered in front of him, forcing him to turn. 'What are you doing?!'

'Getting away from that stupid island,' Nóttreiði gritted angrily. 'Get out of my way!'

'Stop trying to get yourself killed!' Einfari shot back almost frantically. 'You're acting ridiculous! You shouldn't be flying right after having your wing fixed!'

'I'm not going back there,' Nóttreiði objected hollowly. 'I'm not.'

"There's another island about an hour from here," Maour called out, joining the argument, "but it's occupied. There's a small village, according to my map. You don't want to stop there, do you?"

'Yes,' Nóttreiði retorted, flapping a bit harder, still looking a little unsteady, favoring his injured wing.

Toothless fell back a little, and Einfari joined him.

'He's not thinking straight,' Einfari complained. 'He'll fall right out of the sky. We need to force him back to this island, not keep going!'

"Einfari, I don't claim to understand him, but he's going to explode soon if we keep overriding him," Maour explained worriedly. "He can probably make it to this island, and he's already on the right course, so we don't have to make him do anything. Let him have his way this once, if he thinks he can make it."

About to explode? Heather considered Nóttreiði, and the erratic, frustrated way he was acting. Maour might be right… and Nóttreiði actually losing control would be terrifying. As it was, he had just barely held it over the saddle incident, not to mention having his wing put back into place, never even trying to strike at either her or Maour. She didn't want to see him snap.

But there was one other consideration. "You said there's a village there. What happens when he gets there?"

Maour shrugged. "If he hasn't calmed down by then, we'll have to stop him from doing anything stupid, but he might be a little less… determined… by then."

* * *

About an hour later, they sighted the island. Or at least, they sighted _an_ island.

"My map says it has a village," Maour called out. "But I don't see anything."

Heather squinted, trying to see through the fog around the island. "Neither do I." A lot of trees, dark patches of green, and some open clearings, but no village. Not even any docks or sentry statues carved into sea stacks, as some villages liked to do.

'Maybe that's a good thing,' Einfari murmured to Heather. 'He's still upset.'

She was, of course, talking about Nóttreiði, who had not calmed down in the slightest… though he was now favoring the wing they had so recently fixed, leaning in that direction and listing slightly. It was a small but worrying sign that he was not totally fine.

They followed him as he landed on the outskirts of the island, dropping to trot into the trees almost hastily. Nobody spoke. There was an air of apprehension lingering in the fog all around them.

Nóttreiði stopped in front of one particular tree, staring blankly at it. Then, after a moment of contemplation, he slashed at it with both front paws, dragging a deep cut across the trunk and pulling off large chunks of bark.

Heather watched from atop Einfari as Nóttreiði angrily tore into that one unlucky tree, repeatedly cutting it it from different angles. The scariest thing about the whole scene wasn't the fog, or the violence, or the strange pointlessness of it all. No, the scariest thing, at least to her, was that he was quiet. Nóttreiði was a dragon of snarls, growls, rumbling objections and loud disapproval. He was never really quiet, even when he had nothing to say.

'Maour and I are going to look around,' Toothless announced after a few minutes of watching Nóttreiði. 'We'll make sure we're alone here.'

"Because that worked so well the first time," Maour weakly quipped. "Something about there not being a village here makes me nervous. Don't get comfortable here. We might need to leave fast." He and Toothless were gone before Heather could ask if they should go along.

'Nice of them to duck out on us,' Einfari growled. 'But this is not their problem to deal with anyway. It is a family affair.'

And because it was Nóttreiði, that excluded Heather. "Should I go… somewhere?" Right now, Nóttreiði needed to be calmed down, not pushed further. Her presence wouldn't help.

'Yes, you can go watch our backs,' Einfari loudly announced, tilting to the side so Heather could slide off the saddle. 'This should be private.'

Then she lowered her voice, something Heather didn't really understand, given the voice was mental. 'Listen in.'

Heather nodded obligingly and walked away, finding a sheltered spot under a low-hanging tree and leaning against it, her back to the dragons. She wouldn't hear anything from this distance, though she was still close enough as to not be separated from them.

Or would not, had Einfari not just told her to circumvent that very privacy She smiled slyly as she tapped into Einfari's sense of hearing. Einfari was practical enough to want her in the loop on Nóttreiði's issues, privacy notwithstanding. That was good. It was very much what she would have done were she and Einfari in each other's place.

She didn't, however, tap into Einfari's sight. Listening in was one thing, and being blind to what was going on in front of her own face out here on a suspiciously empty island quite another. She would survey the forest in front of her as she listened, just in case.

A while passed in which nothing was said. Nóttreiði was audibly slowing down in his assault on the tree, but he wasn't quite done.

'Is this guilt or frustration?' Einfari's voice was soft and worried. 'Brother, you are actually scaring me now, and I was worried before you woke.'

No response.

'We are alone. Where is the Nóttreiði I know?' She sounded very sincere, and Heather almost felt bad for listening in, though she had been invited to.

'I failed again,' Nóttreiði gritted, though far less harshly than Heather expected of him. 'A Skrill attacked, and where was I? Where were you? One of us was safely out of the way.'

'I wouldn't call how we found you "safe" in any way,' EInfari rumbled. 'It was bad luck.'

'Incompetence, failure, weakness,' Nóttreiði retorted. 'I fail, and you face danger, again and again. Insidious or open, voluntarily or not, it makes no difference.'

Heather flinched at the darkness in that statement. Since when had Nóttreiði ever spoken badly of himself like this?

Since when did any of the Nótts reveal weakness in public? Nóttreiði obviously considered her an outsider, so of course she never saw this side of him. It shouldn't come as a surprise.

'You tried.' That was underlaid by a curious warble. 'How did you end up like that, anyway?'

'Tried? I don't even remember making it off the ground, and I have no idea how I ended up wedged between two trees with a broken wing.' A sudden rustle, as if Nóttreiði had flexed said wing. 'Broken in a way that requires the attention of enemies to be healed, but also broken so that I will not slow us in getting to where Maour wants to go.'

Einfari laughed scornfully, her tone laden with frustration. 'Put aside Father's paranoia, brother. He did not force it out of his mind just for you to adopt it in his stead. We found you dangling from your wing in a ravine, pinned by fallen trees, and neither Heather nor Maour had anything to do with it. Heather risked her safety climbing down to find out how badly hurt you were.'

'To find out if she could dispatch me without anyone noticing, and blame it on the situation,' Nóttreiði countered. 'Tell me, did she take weapons down into the ravine?' His voice was prompting and smug.

Einfari hesitated. 'Neither ax left Toothless's saddlebag.'

A mocking gurgle. 'So that is a yes.'

'Used only to climb the slick rocks, and broken in the process,' Einfari shot back. 'Seriously, open your eyes.'

'Open yours.' It was a heartfelt plea. 'Ever since this new human showed up, you avoid me, and make yourself blind.'

'Who is doing the avoiding?' Einfari's voice cut at Nóttreiði. 'I did not change my routine, only who I shared it with. You were welcome to continue as we always did.'

'You replaced me.' That was followed by a short, sharp snarl. 'With a dangerous, sneaky human, no less. But I figured you were smart enough to discern its true nature quickly enough. I was waiting for you to see the truth, dispose of it, and apologize.'

'If we were not in possibly hostile territory, I would tell you to blast that poor tree into oblivion, because the swelling in your head is getting dangerously high and needs to be relieved,' Einfari complained. 'What has come over you? Joy is less childish than that, and she has the excuse of actually being immature.'

'Childish? You have a new best friend, and it is wrapping you around its deceptively weak claws,' Nóttreiði retorted. 'I am done with this. You will not be swayed, so I will wait until it betrays us, kill it, and then hope you learn from this.'

'I hope the same, at least in regards to a stubborn, blind dragon learning they were wrong and accepting that,' Einfari spat venomously. 'Also, for the hundredth time, no matter what we are not to kill her, by Father's own orders.'

Nóttreiði snorted at that. 'It will die, here or on our island after taking it back to be condemned. And I will enjoy watching it die, no matter who ends up actually killing it.'

'Will you?' Einfari sounded utterly horrified. 'That is vile.'

'It is an enemy-'

'So was that Skrill, but nobody had fun killing it!' Einfari screeched. 'I did it! I don't regret it, either. But you won't ever get me to say I enjoyed it, because I didn't! I hated every second of it.'

Silence. Heather felt vaguely uncomfortable having her back to them, especially given what Nóttreiði was saying, but she wasn't actually present for this conversation, technically speaking, so turning around for any reason would be very suspicious.

'You might want to cut down on the screeching.' It sounded like Toothless and Maour had returned. 'There is actually a village here.'

'There is?' Einfari asked worriedly. 'Why didn't we see it?' Her voice contained more than a hint of embarrassment at being heard.

"They hid it pretty well," Maour contributed. "Heather, what are you doing?" So he had seen her, sitting alone at some distance from the dragons. Good, she could pretend he had just alerted her to their presence.

"What?" She turned to look at the dragons, who were arrayed as she would have expected, Einfari and Nóttreiði facing each other with a few feet of empty air between them, and Toothless off to the side, Maour on his back.

"We found the village. They have a cove hidden on the far side of the island, and the village itself is in the middle of the forest, totally invisible from the air." His voice was speculative. "Clearly, they don't want to be noticed. We should be good to stay here for a while as long as we're careful."

'Why would we need to stay?' Nóttreiði asked. 'Let's keep going.'

"Your wing." Maour frowned at Nóttreiði. "I'd assumed it would be sore at the very least."

'You'll not get the satisfaction of knowing if it is, but I can make it as far as needed.'

'Where are we going next?' Einfari asked. 'And are we able to get ahead of this storm or not?'

Maour shrugged. "The next island is a half-day's journey away, so we shouldn't leave now… if it's even night anymore." He looked up at the dark, stormy sky. "I honestly can't tell from down here."

Heather wasn't sure if he meant that. Sure, he apparently could see in the dark, but would that really mean he couldn't tell day from night when the weather was bad? She could. It wasn't night, because she could still see more than half a foot in front of her. It was as simple as that.

'We stay here for a while, and then go,' Toothless announced. 'If,' he amended, looking at Nóttreiði, 'we're all able to go.'

'I am fine,' Nóttreiði muttered rebelliously. 'Good as new.'

Toothless grinned. 'So, Maour and Heather did a great job in helping you?'

Nóttreiði growled. 'I healed myself.' From the way he was avoiding looking at anyone as he said that, he was entirely aware of how ridiculously petty he sounded.

'Don't bother, he's not listening to reason,' Einfari muttered bitterly, lashing her tail and splashing some muddy rainwater around her. 'And I'm done trying for now. How long should we stay?'

"You and Toothless were asleep for a while on the last island, but I don't know how rested Nóttreiði really is," Maour began. "Nóttreiði, how long do you need?"

'No time at all.' After a moment, he amended that. 'But I can tolerate waiting a few more hours.'

"No way to really judge it any more accurately than that," Heather noted under her breath. Right now, that basically meant waiting around until someone got bored and decided the 'few hours' were up. They had just done that on the last island.

But she wasn't the one doing the leg work, or in this case wing work of traveling. She had no right to complain.

* * *

Time passed. The dragons had decided to group up around one particularly wide tree, putting their backs to it, and covering their fronts with their wings, in an effort to both not be too vulnerable but also keep under cover. Ideally, they'd hear something long before it saw them, though Heather personally doubted that, given it was still raining and therefore quite noisy.

She and Maour were supposed to be the actual guards, though Nóttreiði hadn't liked that idea at all. At that, he might not actually be asleep. There was no real way to know.

Fog continued to drift across the forest as time passed, gradually obscuring the world.

"You know," Maour whispered, apparently unwilling to break the silence, "I never really understood what causes this."

He was obviously talking about the fog. To be fair, she didn't know either, but… "why would you want to?" Maybe if it was useful, but smoke worked just as well for obscuring vision, and was readily available, especially to someone with a dragon at their side.

"Why would I not want to understand?" She couldn't see him, as he was on the other side of the tree, tucked between Toothless's front paws and chest, but she could hear the confusion in his voice. "Sometimes I want to know things, even if they don't matter now."

Her mind was drawn back to the one mystery that might never be solved, or might be solved in just a few more days. "Maybe I understand that." Her question was not one of 'how', but 'why'.

"Not just fog, either. Any and everything." Now Maour was rambling, though she found that endearing, and a little refreshing after spending so much time recently with careful people so much like herself. "The weather, the world, the mind…"

The mind. That reminded her of a recent resolution, to coerce him into explaining what he knew of treating the mind, so that she might use it on her own intermittent issues. "What do you know about that last one?"

"The mind? Nothing, really." She could almost hear him thinking, the pause was so pronounced. "I know we all have one, I know some of us can use it better than others, or maybe some of us have more practice or need than others... I know it can be broken and bent." His tone turned sad. "You've seen that. Togi, and even Dagur. Not the same problems in any way, but the same category. They have issues."

Togi… It had taken her a while to internalize the way these dragons handled names, but she thought she had it now… and for Maour to say that, Nóttleiðtogi _really _didn't have a problem with him. Just another little example of how badly she was failing at that. Nóttreiði was the current facet of her goal of being accepted by the whole Nótt family, but Nóttleiðtogi was still far from accepting too, in his own, more hurt and less aggressive way. She didn't like being reminded of failure.

"I can help Togi a little," Maour continued. "Small things, over a long period of time. Constant support. He wants to improve. Dagur never did."

He spoke as if from experience. Heather was still a little hazy on that. "How did you know Dagur again?"  
"Heir of Berk, meet Heir of Berserker," Maour said in a mocking, macho tone. "I think that was how it started. And 'Heir of Meathead', along with 'Heir of Burglar' and a few others, but they're not important, and I rarely ever saw any of them. Berserker island was the only close tribe."

"So you had to deal with him every time your tribes met," Heather guessed.

"Oh yeah, I was basically his keeper when he was on Berk. Or, more accurately, his distraction." Now the disdain was heavy in his voice. "No help, nobody wondering if maybe leaving the lunatic with Berk's heir was a bad idea, nothing. I'm not entirely sure they would have minded so much if he killed me."

Wow, he was bitter. "Surely not."

"Fine, _some_ people would have cared, but they sure didn't go out of their way to help me keep him from breaking things… or people." He sounded no less bitter at admitting that. "He's crazy, but in a way Vikings like, brash and violent. I'm not surprised he's already chief."

"They don't seem to mind," Heather agreed. Not once in her days a captive on the Berserker ship had she heard her guards talking about Dagur in a negative light.

"Oh, I'm sure some do mind, they just can't speak up, because, you know, the insanity." Maour corrected.

"So when he dies, things will get better for them too," Heather mused. It was nice to know her personal mission of vengeance would help others along the way.

"Nobody said he's going to die anytime soon," Maour objected.

Heather winced. She really shouldn't have said that. "We don't know what's going to happen," she backtracked.

"But we know what you'd prefer," Maour countered, his tone now suspicious.

Okay, time to turn this away from her. "And maybe what you'd prefer?" She asked promptingly. "You just told me how bad he is."

"That doesn't mean I want him dead, exactly." How could he sound so certain? "I just want to not have to deal with him."

"And for all the people who _do _have to deal with him?" she challenged. "What about them?"

"Heather, don't pretend this is about some faceless group of Berserkers you don't know," Maour shot back, no longer keeping quiet. "You want revenge, plain and simple."

"Of course I do!" Why did he say it as if that was a bad thing? "Anyone would! Tell me you wouldn't!"

"Whether I would or not doesn't make it any better for you." His voice softened. "Look, maybe you deserve revenge. And I'm not saying he doesn't deserve to pay for all he's done. But revenge can't be the only thing driving you. There needs to be something else, anything else, to balance it out, if the revenge is even necessary in the first place."

"Who says I don't have anything else?"

"You? The day you ended up on our island?"

She _had _said that… "That was then. This is now." Whatever would get Maour off of her back about this. She needed to be free to strike however necessary once they came into contact with Dagur.

"Maybe." his voice turned stern. "But I'm resolving this without death if at all possible. That's the safer option for the pack."

"Leaving a madman with a grudge alive is the _safer _option?" She couldn't understand that viewpoint at all.

"Dagur is crazy, but he's got goals," Maour explained. "And somehow, you're tied up in one of them. We live far from him, and the archipelago is enough to keep him occupied for the rest of his life if we can just get you out of his focus. The next Berserker chief might be more like Astrid, and if that happens then we're _really _in trouble. One tribe led by that particular obsession is more than bad enough."

"I'd rather-"

"_I_ will do whatever works out best for the people I care about," Maour interrupted. "And if I'm being honest, your revenge is pretty low on my list of priorities when lives are at stake."

She couldn't complain about that, really, though she could and would circumvent it. Especially because she still believed killing Dagur was the best option for everyone in the long run. For now though, she needed to be sure Maour wouldn't suspect her of going for it anyway.

"I guess you're right," she lied. "My revenge isn't important."

"Good to hear you understand that." His voice was cold and stern. "I'm not letting you put my family in danger for it."

"Speaking of which, isn't that going to be expanding soon?" An easy way to get him off this topic. She really should have brought that up sooner.

There was a brief pause before Maour answered. "Yes, but how did you know about that?"

"Einfari told me why Toothless was acting like an aggressive jerk right before we left," Heather supplied.

"Ah, yes." Maour laughed quietly. "Honestly, I felt the same. Can't blame that one entirely on instinct."

No, the blame for that fell on Nóttreiði's attitude and past actions. It all came back around to him again.

And she was no closer to breaking through. Einfari had given up in frustration for the time being. Nóttreiði was officially the most stubborn person Heather knew. How was she ever going to get through to him?

* * *

A week. A week of flying, resting, and utterly failing to get anything more than frustrated growls from Nóttreiði, even when he was obviously in pain from flying on his wing. They did make it out in front of the storm, but that was only a small relief. Time passed slowly in the air, and the tension Heather felt only grew as they got closer. The time for waiting was almost over.

* * *

The night was clear and starry, a soft and somewhat chilly wind coming from the North, mixing with the warm air to create currents Einfari and the other Night Furies could ride with ease, gliding without the slightest sound. It was the perfect weather for a stealth mission.

"This is it. Berserker island," Maour announced.

It was… large. The village covered most of the island, completely encircling the mountain rising in the middle. Docks stuck out from one side, far more than any village should ever need. There were no trees, because there was no space for them to grow, every flat surface covered with buildings, walkways, or fields for grazing cattle.

"Was it always this developed?" Heather asked. Was this Dagur's doing, or just how the Berserkers were?

"No, not really." Maour sounded worried. "There were trees last time I was here. What in the world did he use all of them on?"

Ships, judging by the docks, but then where were they? Probably scouring the world for her. Surely this couldn't all be because of her.

It didn't matter. Heather glared down at the island. Somewhere down there was someone who needed to die.

From the tension she could feel in Einfari's neck, she was not the only one who felt that way. And there was one more person who wanted this human dead, albeit along with all the rest…

She glanced over at Nóttreiði, only to find him looking at her. They stared at each other for a moment before breaking eye contact.

Time to plan. As they glided a little further down, she began to notice how many Berserkers there were. Of course, it made sense that a village this size would have a proportionally large amount of people to live in it, but so many of them were clearly guards, wandering the streets, looking for trouble. Had Maour said Dagur was paranoid? It showed. "Not here," she whispered to EInfari. "Too many guards, we'd never catch him alone." Getting Dagur alone was a big factor in whether they could kill him. They didn't want to face him head-on, and being caught before killing him was unacceptable.

Einfari nodded, silently agreeing.

Maour and Toothless, unaware of any of this, circled a little lower still. Toothless chuffed wearily. 'So we just drop the message on someone and hope they deliver it?'

Maour laughed. "We could, but we might as well make this as dramatic as possible while staying safe. Just to be sure he knows it's legitimately from the dragon rider."

'We'll deliver the message,' Toothless said to Einfari and Nóttreiði. 'Cover us, but don't let them know you're here at all unless it's life or death.'

What followed was a tense, silent vigil. They circled above the village as Toothless and Maour descended, carefully landing on a dark hut. No alarm. They had not been seen.

Toothless waited until the path in front of the hut was empty to slink down into the alley beside it. Then he waited again, for the right target.

Eventually, the perfect target came into view. Two Berserkers, one on either side of the path, a good distance apart, were tossing a mace back and forth, playing a stupidly dangerous game of catch as they patrolled.

Heather grinned, knowing Toothless was going to pick the one on his side of the path. Such an easy target.

Sure enough, a black blur pounced out of the shadows of the alley the moment the Berserker tossed his only weapon back at his friend. From this high up, Heather couldn't be sure if there was a scream or not, but if she had to bet, it was too quick even for that. By the time the other Berserker had caught the mace, his friend was nowhere to be seen.

Then that same black shadow leaped up onto the hut, dropped the Berserker, lingered for a few moments, and leaped up, quickly flying out of sight into the night even as alarms were raised.

'He left the Berserker on the roof,' Einfari noted in amusement.

"With the note," Heather added. "And probably a lifelong fear of alleys or playing 'toss the mace' with his only weapon."

Toothless was getting close now, so they dove a little and met him on his way up.

'That was fun,' he chortled as soon as he was close enough to be heard.

"And it worked perfectly," Maour agreed as they leveled out. "Now, we need to go to the island I specified."

"How do you know about a random, unoccupied island out here?" She hadn't considered that before now.

"It's a landmark around here, but totally worthless, so there's no chance they've built anything there. You'll understand why when you see it."

Oh, great. More flying. She didn't like that they were turning their back on her target, but at least now Dagur would be coming to them, not the other way around.

It was past time she was the hunter, not the hunted.

* * *

As it turned out, the island in question was worthless because it was nothing but rock. Interestingly arranged rock, but still just rock. No trees, no fresh water, not even any grass. It was just an uneven, rocky lump sticking out of the ocean. It also looked like some old sea stack had fallen onto it at some point, because there were various boulders and shards of rock sticking up at random intervals, some the size of large houses. All in all, the island was a tactical nightmare, a place where it would be impossible to watch one's own back.

"Okay Maour, what's the plan?" This place unnerved Heather. She felt like something was watching her.

"First, we make sure there are no surprises here. We need to check it out. And this time, no splitting up."

They proceeded to do just that, landing on the outskirts and thoroughly investigating the entire island. It was small but labyrinthine, so that took a while. The island really was as lifeless as it appeared. That didn't make her feel any less unnerved.

"Okay, so this works." Maour began pacing, following a winding path around several chest-high rocks. "Neutral ground. We can use it. When they get here, Einfari and Nóttreiði need to be hidden, ready to intervene. Nobody knows they exist, so Dagur will only be expecting Toothless."

Nóttreiði growled, looking around. 'This place has nowhere good to hide!'

Toothless laughed. 'From dragons, maybe. But remember, we only need to hide from Berserkers.' He looked at the tops of some of the taller boulders. 'I assume Maour is thinking you will hide on top of the bigger boulders. Totally visible from above...'

Einfari purred. 'But the Berserkers won't see us. Because they're stuck on the ground.' It was true. From sea level, one couldn't even see the flat surfaces that made up the tops of some of these rocks. They would be invisible if they hunkered down.

Maour nodded, agreeing. "If Toothless says, you two attack. Hopefully, that won't happen, but if it does..." He frowned slightly.

Toothless continued. 'Show no mercy. They definitely won't.' He turned to stare at Nóttreiði. 'And don't attack unless I give the signal.' Then, he turned to stare at Einfari equally intently. 'Unless _I _give the signal.'

Heather frowned slightly and changed the subject. "What will we be doing?" Somehow, Toothless knew enough to warn Einfari off of ambushing Dagur. Had he figured it out on his own, or had Maour warned him of her intention of revenge? It didn't matter. If the opportunity presented itself, Einfari could apologize after the fact and blame it on reflexes.

After a moment of awkward silence, Maour continued. "See that sea stack over there?" He pointed to a tall pillar in the distance, about thirty seconds flight from where they were. "We'll be waiting on top. Once the Berserkers are there and it's sunset, Toothless will fly us over. Me on his back, and to really sell the whole 'prisoner' deal, you in his front paws, hands 'tied' up." He smirked at that.

Good, he was putting her within striking range. But if she got the chance to strike… she looked at Nóttreiði. "Nóttreiði. Will I be allowed to use the ax if Dagur attacks us?" She tried to sound as serious as possible.

Nóttreiði grumbled discontentedly. He seemed to be regretting forbidding Heather her ax now, if only because now he was forced to grant her permission to defend herself when Einfari wouldn't even be in range. 'Only for this, and you do not take it anywhere near Einfari, or I blast you.'

'No blasting her,' Einfari corrected angrily. 'She won't be attacking her allies if this goes bad, and she might just protect one of us. Stop hindering our defenses.'

'Fine,' Nóttreiði rumbled.

Maour shrugged, apparently fine with how that had been handled. "I'll have it on my belt, on the side Heather will be standing on. The ropes won't be tied tightly at all, so she should have no trouble breaking free and grabbing it the second there's trouble." Luckily, the ax was small enough for it to hang from his belt when folded. Heather assumed the other ax, the one she had brought herself, was staying in the saddlebag.

'And there will be trouble,' Nóttreiði griped. 'How do you plan on convincing a lunatic to do anything?' A suspicious, searching question.

Maour answered hesitantly. "I know Dagur. He's crazy, but he always has a goal. The whole problem here is we don't know what it is. Once I figure that out, it's on me. I have no plan because I can't plan for the unknown. I'm just setting it up so I have a chance, no matter what he does. Maybe he just wants to give Heather a gift or something stupid. Dagur is deranged, after all. This could be something simple to resolve."

Toothless growled. 'Or, it could be something impossible to resolve. We have no clue.' That, to Heather's mind, was the far more likely scenario.

Maour nodded. "Basically, once Dagur starts talking, we wing it."

After that, Maour and Toothless went to find a nearby source of fresh water, searching out other small islands in the vicinity. Nóttreiði, Einfari, and Heather set up on the aforementioned sea stack.

Einfari sat next to her brother, far closer than normal. 'Heather. Toothless warned me off. He knows, or at least suspects. Does this change anything?'

Heather nodded from her spot a few feet away. "Maour suspects too. But if we get a perfect shot..."

Einfari warbled cautiously. 'Do we have to strike immediately? We could just wait until this thing plays out. I'd rather not completely go against Toothless if there is a chance Dagur will force us to kill him anyway.'

Heather sighed. "Well, what do you suggest?"

'Don't be hasty. If Dagur ends up sailing away alive and well, we can always blast him out of existence then. If he doesn't, we've accomplished our goal without crossing Maour and Toothless to do it.'

Nóttreiði spoke to Einfari, surprising both of them. 'You should wait. And...' He seemed to struggle with himself for a long moment. 'If you do attack his boat on departure, I will keep Maour and Toothless from interfering. That could get you hurt if they try to stop you and get in the way.' He grimaced. 'Because clearly you are set on this, Einfari. I can't sway you, for whatever reason. But I can make sure you survive it. Interference would be more dangerous than anything else.'

Heather said nothing. Nóttreiði's motives were clear, and a desire to spite Toothless was a factor, right alongside protect Einfari, combined with a still-burning hatred of humans. This course of action favored all three. But she would take the help. Dagur would die by the end of this, one way or another. She would make sure of it.

* * *

Dagur smiled as his ship was moored at the docks on his island. The gangplank extended and a portly guard frantically blew an oversized horn, as was his duty.

However, the fool was standing in Dagur's way, but a rough shove and kick as he passed by solved that issue. The hornblower splashed into the water. Dagur took a moment to enjoy the sight of his irate floundering. It was an amusing sight... but that particular Berserker was too stupid and brazen to remain. A quick flick of a dagger into the fool's neck solved that issue.

Dagur frowned in contemplation on who would be the next hornblower. It was an important task to announce the presence of 'His Derangedness,' a high honor not easily earned. He turned to look at his guards lining the way. One of them was looking at the former hornblower who was floating motionless in the crimson tide. He looked at Dagur, then gulped and looked at the ground.

Perfect!

Dagur clapped the guard on the shoulder and said, "What's your name?"

The guard looked like he wanted to disappear from sight. "Wha- oh, my name? It's Ulf-"

"Shut up" Dagur shouted. "You talk too much! You're the new hornblower."

The guard looked back at the former hornblower and gulped. Dagur shoved him in the water and said, "You'll need his horn. Oh, and take care of his body."

He began the walk back to his extremely secured chief hut without further tormenting the man. There was too much to do now to waste time on a fun distraction. This latest visit to Berk had only added to the list, though in ways he had not anticipated.

He sighed happily, his mood reversing in an instant. That was one challenge he couldn't wait to tackle, but it had to wait, because the meeting of chieftains wasn't for another month. A slight cackle escaped him as he thought about that.

His good mood lasted right about until a rather sweaty Berserker guard ran up to him, eyes wide with fear of something aside from him. That didn't make him happy at all. Berserkers were supposed to fear nothing except the wrath of their chief. His good mood vanished, and the normal, angry and sadistic Dagur reemerged. "What is it now?! I was busy!"

The Berserker didn't bother pointing out that Dagur was just walking through the village. He quickly handed over a parchment, flinching away as he did. "Message for you... from the dragon rider." His voice conveyed his fear. His knees weren't shaking, but he was close to that point.

Dagur grinned as he read the message. Eventually, he folded the parchment slowly and carefully, and then set it on fire with a nearby torch. "Finally, someone as insane as myself. Even if I should gut him like a fish for riding a dragon." What were the odds? Right after this trip, of all times?

He turned to the messenger. "How did you get this?"

The Berserker paled. "I was on patrol when something grabbed me out of an alley and dropped me onto a roof. I didn't even see it. Then a piece of parchment dropped in front of me. That parchment."

Dagur laughed. "Of course. So simple. I hate him already! A true warrior would have shown his face, or delivered this to me in person." He turned to his second in command, a weedy man he had picked up in a confrontation involving some Outcasts and a territorial dispute. "Savage, ready a ship. We're going to a tiny piece of rock about a day's sail from here, West of us. We leave at daybreak tomorrow."

Savage knew his position granted him just a tiny bit of leeway. Mostly because Dagur hated training new recruits. "Why?" That was a question only he could ask safely.

Dagur grinned, and then laughed maniacally. After a moment, he had recovered enough to speak. "The dragon rider caught Heather and is willing to negotiate with us. Of course, he had a bunch of cowardly requirements, but nothing we can't handle."

"Should I ready a warship?"

"No," Dagur decided on a whim, "one of the patrol boats. You and three of our best warriors will be accompanying me. Make sure they all bring crossbows." He and one other were the only ones allowed on the island under the conditions the cowardly rider had set, but that didn't cover shooting from offshore.

And he would keep to the letter, if not the spirit of the terms, because he was mostly a man of his word. When he wanted to be, anyway, and the strategic opportunities presented by allying with the rider couldn't be ignored. There were old legends of Berserkers harnessing Skrill and forcing them to fight for the armada, but no one knew how it was done now if they could ever even find one. This rider clearly knew how to subjugate dragons. Hopefully, he could get some information from him. And Heather, of course, but that wouldn't be an issue.

* * *

Dagur eyed the island the letter had indicated. "Doesn't look like much, does it?" He considered it for the next hour as the small boat tacked around, getting a clear view of the entire thing from all angles. No one hiding in ambush.

At a few minutes before sunset, they dropped anchor within jumping distance of a well-placed boulder. Savage had suggested it, for a possible quick getaway. No wading through the shallows to get back. Dagur had agreed.

"Shame about all the boulders." Savage sighed. "They make our crossbows useless." The crossbows would still excel at defending the ship itself, along with the net-launcher installed on the deck. But the terrain ruined any possibility of the other Berserkers interfering from the boat. Dagur would hold to his word, so they weren't stepping foot on the island itself.

Dagur jumped across, landing on the rock. He looked around and then put away his wicked curved ax, the double blades asymmetrically located on the hilt. A disturbing weapon for a disturbing and disturbed individual. Savage had a simple sword and knife, both of which he also put away. They wouldn't be needed. Yet.

Dagur and Savage made their way to the center of the island. Savage had a look around and reported that there was no sign of life. Dagur was used to the ever-present sensation of being watched. He didn't mind it.

Neither of them noticed the two Furies well hidden on top of the two tallest boulders, all but invisible.

At sunset, Dagur looked to the skies. "Well, where is he? We've been here a whole ten seconds past sunset. How late can he be?"

As if in response to that, a black dragon lifted off of a sea stack and flew towards the island.

"There you are." Dagur chuckled. "Look, Savage, it's got something in its clutches!"

Savage frowned. "Odd. I would 'ave thought the rider would actually, ya know, ride the dragon. Not be carried."

Dagur punched Savage, almost knocking him over. "Stupid. That would be Heather, obviously." He watched as the dragon landed on the edge of the island. It was obscured by the rocks, but not for long. Soon, he saw three silhouettes approaching. What had to be the Night Fury, a man in black armor and a matching black helmet... and the one he knew had to be Heather, with her hands tied and eyes downcast. Perfect. He idly wondered what the man wanted for her. He would gladly pay any price... as long as the rider agreed to come back to Berserker island to collect his payment.

_**Author's Note: **_**A bit of reality here. If Maour had actually known anything about dislocated shoulders and by extension wing-shoulders, he never would have convinced them to let Nóttreiði fly on it moments after putting it back into place. Re-dislocating it is far more likely if it's used in the first few **_**days **_**after being fixed. Nóttreiði only managed to fly as far as he did because dragons are far more hardy than humans, and even then nobody really knows how lucky he was to make it at all. This is one of those things that isn't important story-wise, but only because nobody in-story fully understands the situation and risks involved. And in case you're wondering, we haven't seen the last of that particular injury.**


	14. Chapter 14

**_Author's Note: _Back on track now. I intend to stay on track, too. And now, for a confrontation you've been anticipating for a while.**

A maniac, a lackey, a prisoner, a dragon, and a dark masked figure. They would make quite the sight if anyone could see them, obscured by the maze-like rubble around them. Even more of a sight, if one was looking from above, were the other two dragons lurking, waiting to pounce if needed.

At the moment, none of that really mattered to Heather. She knew she was no prisoner, her hands only appearing tied together in front of her, and the ax on Maour's belt loop was hers, not his. Appearances were deceiving, and the trap was set.

After a few moments of staring at Toothless, Dagur abruptly shook himself, refocusing on Maour. "Well, we finally meet. Two of the craziest men in the archipelago!" He was enthusiastic if nothing else, in a very unsettling way. "Me, Dagur the Deranged, and you... well, you know what you are."

Heather tried not to react when she heard Dagur's voice. She kept her eyes downcast, her hands ready to break free in an instant. The one responsible for all that was wrong with her life was right in front of her, and she wanted him dead. Not yet, but very soon.

Maour laughed, a strained and cautious undertone audible in his voice. "Sorry, totally sane here." His voice was also a bit deeper, as if he was trying to disguise it. Heather wasn't sure if that was necessary, but better safe than sorry.

Dagur frowned. "Right. Rides a Night Fury; totally sane. A bit of a contradiction, don't you think?" His mood abruptly shifted. "Nevertheless. You have done me a personal favor by capturing Heather. She's a slippery one," he confided conspiratorially. "My men have been after her for quite a while now." He eyed Heather. "Yup, black hair, same eyes, same face. That's her."

Maour frowned. "You say that as if you've seen her before." Probing for information.

Dagur shrugged. "Honestly? I wasn't sure. But I know now. That's definitely her. What do I owe you for such a generous gesture?" He glanced at Toothless, who was standing in the rapidly fading sunlight, staring impassively, motionless except for his subtly twitching claws.

Maour didn't respond at first. Finally, he spoke. "Why do you want her?" This was it. "She clearly hates you."

Dagur appeared offended for a moment before laughing unsettlingly. "Who hates their own brother?"

Heather's jaw dropped. She couldn't hold her silence. "Just how crazy are you?! I am not your sister!"

Dagur took a step forward. "But you are." He held up a hand to silence her. "I've always had a few strange memories from long ago. I always attributed them to, you know, the derangedness, because I definitely never had a sister. But when I was going through old Osvald's parchments a while back, I found a letter from some random guy on another island."

He laughed scornfully, monologuing as if speaking to a personal friend. "At first, I thought the old man had been trying to set up a bride for me because the whole letter was about a girl. But there were more. From further and further back, the same dude, talking about the same girl. I found the oldest one at the bottom of the pile."

At that, Dagur's voice lost its joking tone, growing serious for a moment. "Apparently, dear old dad, already too cowardly close to twenty years ago, sent his own daughter to live with some other married couple he knew from somewhere. He thought I might do something rash." Dagur giggled disturbingly, abruptly losing the seriousness. "At the age of three, no less. Or maybe he was worried about later on. Either way."

He took a step forward, gesturing towards Heather. "I sent the armada in search of you. But I didn't want anyone to know. So they had orders to silence anyone they questioned about you. I was with them that trip. We found the island the letters had come from and started questioning villagers… and the chase began!" He grinned.

Heather was horrified, and too shocked to reply.

Dagur took her silence as an invitation to continue. "And so, my dear sister, here we are. I've always wanted a sibling!" He frowned. "Well, a sister anyway. A brother would be a bit dangerous. I'd probably have to kill any brother of mine. Line of succession, all of that." He gestured towards Savage. "I've been saying I could use another second-in-command. It would make sense to have two, after all. You could be in charge of the island, and Savage could be in charge of the armada!"

Savage clearly hadn't known any of this and was none too pleased with that. "Sir, is it the best idea to-"

Dagur cut him off. "Quiet Savage. Anyway, Heather. Join me, and help bring the Berserker tribe back to its glory days! You can't deny the Berserker blood flowing through your veins! I like the sound of 'Heather the Unhinged', do you? I mean, I don't know if you're crazy, but the names match at least. What do you say?"

"I don't know," she replied bitterly, spitting at his feet. "What's the most insulting possible way to say 'go to Helheim?'" She raised her head, meeting his fey eyes. Hopefully he would see her desire to kill him, though she doubted he was sane enough to care.

Maour's shifted on his feet. "Did you really think she'd say yes? You killed her parents. Both adoptive and original, apparently."

Dagur shrugged. "Who cares about them? Besides, I'm the only family she has left now. She'll come around eventually."

Maour shrugged in return, acting casual. He couldn't let on that he cared. "Maybe not. So, there's no way you'll just leave her alone? Let her disappear for good?" Let Dagur infer what he would from those questions.

Dagur shook his head. "Sorry. Must get lonely wherever you live. But no, not a chance." He smiled cruelly. "My dear sister will be coming home, like it or not."

* * *

Toothless had heard enough, and said to Maour, 'He isn't giving us a choice. We should strike now. He isn't going to give up.'

Maour was frozen by indecision. He couldn't just have Dagur killed, because that wasn't who he was, but he could see no way to fix this. He didn't respond.

But he didn't have to. Of all people, Savage took the decision out of his hands a moment later when he stepped forward, unsheathing his sword to brandish it. "We should just take her from h-"

He was cut off by a plasma blast at his feet, throwing him back several feet. Einfari had fired on him.

Dagur had been watching Toothless out of the corner of his eye the entire time. One didn't need to be paranoid to think that a sensible precaution. So even in the fading light, he saw that it wasn't Toothless who had fired. He darted between two tall stone fragments, out of sight.

'We need to leave, now!' Toothless growled aimlessly, trying to look in every direction. The island's structure was dense; Dagur could be anywhere around them and they wouldn't know it.

Maour snapped back to attention. "Nóttreiði, cover Einfari!" He pulled out his scythe and turned to Savage, who was scrambling to his feet. "Run."

Savage laughed, retrieving his sword. "Not a chance!" The look in his eyes implied he did not consider Maour much of a threat. He rushed Maour.

Maour jabbed his still-closed scythe at Savage like a spear.

Savage took the bait and knocked it aside with his sword. He was abruptly sliced down the arm by the now-unlocked scythe's spike when Maour pulled it back. Savage jerked away from the new threat and cursed as his arm began bleeding heavily.

Maour didn't press his advantage. He had switched over to Toothless's far more powerful hearing in an attempt to hear Dagur coming, since sight was no good here. But they couldn't hear anything. "Toothless, are Heather and Einfari up?" He didn't take his eyes off of Savage.

'Yes, just now. They're covering us from the air.' Toothless was still warily turning in circles. 'I can't smell Dagur. He must be downwind.' That didn't really help.

But Dagur wasn't content to just hide. With a blood-chilling scream, he jumped at Toothless from a low boulder, ax held high, gleaming in the last glimmer of daylight, the sun barely visible on the horizon.

Toothless jumped backward, preparing a plasma blast. Dagur landed right in front of him, burying his ax in a crack in the rocks by accident. Thinking quickly, Toothless swiped at him with his tail, knocking Dagur away from his weapon.

Dagur grinned and held out a hand, catching the sword Savage had just thrown to him. Savage promptly fled to the boat, holding his injured arm, likely intent on calling in the other Berserkers.

But in the time it had taken Savage to throw his weapon, Maour was there. He struck at Dagur with the bladed end of his scythe, forcing the Berserker back. For a moment their eyes met, and their weapons were still.

Dagur chuckled. "That thing looks fun. I'll have to try it once I pry it out of your cold, dead hands."

Maour shrugged. "Mind the sharp edges." With that, he spun the scythe in attack, forcing Dagur to focus on defending.

'Maour, I need a clear shot! Get out of the way!' Toothless had a plasma blast big enough to wipe Dagur from existence ready, but he needed Maour to move out of the way to use it. They were fighting in something that was almost a corridor formed by boulders, and Toothless had no other angle to shoot from.

Maour grunted, pushing Dagur further back. "Kinda hard to do when I can't let up pushing forward!"

Dagur frowned as he parried, and occasionally attacked back, far less often then he probably would have liked. "You sure you aren't crazy? I mean, talking to yourself is a pretty big indicator." He grinned as the tide turned, and he began to take the offensive, forcing Maour back the way they had come.

After a few moments, Maour began laughing, despite being forced back. "It's not crazy if the voices in my head aren't mine." Then he rolled to the side, having backed out into an open area, giving him space to move... and giving Toothless his clear shot.

Dagur saw his predicament at that moment. "Oh, great." In a last-ditch effort, he threw his sword at Toothless at the same moment the dragon fired.

The plasma blast hit the sword halfway between them, and the sword exploded into metal shards, several of which hit the various combatants. Toothless and Maour were mostly fine thanks to dragon scales and dragon-scale armor, though one had lodged into Toothless's front paw. It wasn't deep, but it was hot and sharp. Dagur, on the other hand, had taken one to the hip and was in no mood to continue fighting.

"Not... my best plan." He grunted in pain as he pulled the burning-hot shard of metal from his hip. Then he looked down. "Oh, cool. No bleeding." With that, he once again darted into a side-passageway, disappearing into the maze.

Toothless quickly limped over to Maour, and they took off, leaving the Berserker behind. Toothless powered through the pain in his paw and made it to the sea stack. As soon as they had landed, Maour leaped out of the saddle and rushed to inspect the paw.

"I'm going to pull it out. Ready?" Maour had grabbed two metal rods from the spare tailfin parts in the saddlebag and was using them to safely grip the hot shard.

Toothless nodded and tried not to roar in Maour's face as his brother pulled the hot metal out of his paw. He immediately started licking the wound once the metal was gone, desperate to cool it off. Because it had been so hot, there was no blood. The shard had already cauterized the wound, like with Dagur.

Speaking of which... "Where are the others?" Maour asked, echoing Toothless's unspoken question.

* * *

Heather was boiling with rage, but there was no way for them to get to Dagur at the moment. The other Berserkers were armed with crossbows, and Dagur was somewhere hidden in the rocks. "Did Maour and Toothless make it out?"

Einfari barked as she circled around, just out of crossbow range. 'Barely. Five more seconds and they would have gotten shot. One bolt through the wing or tail and we're done.'

Nóttreiði snarled angrily and fired a pointless plasma blast down at the island. The same range that prevented crossbow bolts also rendered plasma blasts worthless, especially with this terrain, covered in hiding spots as it was. Going down there now would be suicide. 'This is too dangerous. You can't attack his ship without going in, and getting shot in the process.'

Einfari growled at him. 'I know that. We need a new plan.'

They circled the island from above a few more times. Finally, Heather slumped in the saddle. "Let's just go back to the sea stack. We can't do anything here."

With that, they returned to the other two and set down on the sea stack. Heather immediately jumped down and began pacing, doing anything she could think of to calm down even slightly. She had sacrificed a perfect shot at Dagur with the understanding that they'd attack his ship, and now they couldn't do that either!

* * *

Toothless eyed Heather. She was clearly upset. 'Heather?' He was in pain, but it was nothing he couldn't handle, and it was slowly fading to a manageable level. This was more important. 'Are you okay?'

Heather spun and glared at him. "No, of course not!" She didn't seem inclined to continue. She sat on the edge of the sea stack, facing away from the island.

Einfari whined softly. 'Sorry for that. When that idiot got too close to Heather with his sword, I just reacted. I didn't think.'

Maour shook his head. "No, it was going to go bad anyway. I had no idea what to do. The worst part is, I have no idea what Dagur is going to do now, either. He knows Heather is with me, but he has no idea where I live. The letter I wrote referred to our island as a worthless stop-over, so hopefully he forgets about it."

Toothless snorted. 'And Savage saw Heather with Einfari.'

"Yeah, he probably did. But there really isn't anything Dagur can do. He knows very well he can't catch us. Hopefully, he doesn't even know where to start looking."

Toothless grinned sarcastically. 'Mission accomplished?'

Maour laughed, playfully pushing Toothless's side. "Sure, let's say that. But now we need to get on to part two. Finding out from Gobber where the Nest search is going. That will be weird. I haven't actually seen him since... well since we left."

Heather nodded. "And time for us to head home." That had always been the plan. This was the official end of her part of the journey. Emphasis on official.

Maour shook his head. "Not just yet. Heather, you should at least talk about it. Dagur sounded pretty sure, and I think Savage would have disproved him to protect his own position if he could."

Heather shrugged and walked over to Einfari. "I don't care if he's right or not, he isn't my brother." She hugged Einfari. "Thank you for protecting me. I hope to return the favor someday."

Nóttreiði shifted uneasily and said nothing.

* * *

A few hours later, Dagur's ship left the island. They watched helplessly as it sailed away. Dagur's men were forewarned, and for Maour and Toothless, there was really no reason to attack now. Dagur was just as threatening as any other Viking chief. Which is to say, without information, not very.

Heather, on the other hand, wanted nothing more than to sink that ship right now. But she didn't have the heart to fight Maour and Toothless over it, just to put herself and Einfari in far more danger. The last few hours had been terrible enough without that.

When they didn't end up parting ways until the next night, lazing a whole day away on the sea stack in preparation for the next leg of their respective journeys, Heather wished she had just gone for it. Dagur was safely back on Berserker island by now. But she hid her feelings. "Good luck, you two." Maour and Toothless were preparing to fly over to Berk, which was only a few days trip from here.

'We will not need luck. And neither will you,' Toothless commented. 'Because you know exactly what path to take, along with when and how far to fly-'

'Toothless, we are just retracing our path,' Einfari complained. 'You are asking two intelligent, mostly reasonable Nótts whether they can find their way home.' Her voice was sarcastic.

'I know, I know,' Toothless muttered, lashing his tail and studiously not looking at Nóttreiði. 'I just want to be sure you will make it back. Honestly, I'd rather keep you with us…'

'But there's no point,' Einfari countered. Heather held in a smile at that, knowing as she did that Einfari was only insisting they stick to this part of the travel plan to get Maour and Toothless out of the way. The hunt wasn't over yet.

Maour nodded. "So you'll do as planned. Safe travels back for you three." He seemed to notice something in his saddlebags. "Oh, Heather, I still have your ax."

Heather _really _had to concentrate in order to not give herself away at that. He must be sure she was not going to try for revenge… or just sure Nóttreiði and Einfari would not allow it. He was wrong, but it was good that he thought that. He would not find out that she was not giving up until after it was done. But she was going to have to do it without her ax.

Nóttreiði growled at the sight of the ax. 'And you will continue to have it.'

Maour nodded. "I figured as much. You guys shouldn't need weapons on the way home anyway. We'll see you three in a few weeks, probably. I have no idea how long we'll need to stay around Berk. Probably until Gobber can figure out where the hunt is headed. Hopefully, he already knows." With that, he and Toothless took off, headed in Berk's general direction.

Nobody said anything until they were specks on the horizon. Heather, Nóttreiði, and Einfari were alone for the foreseeable future.

Einfari turned slowly to stare at her brother. The question was obvious. Now what? Heather knew what she and Einfari wanted to do.

Nóttreiði wasn't looking at either of them, staring out towards the island they had so recently failed to even attack Dagur on.

'I am not ignoring you, Einfari,' Nóttreiði announced, addressing his sister even as he stared. 'I also am not ignoring the obvious. We are not going home yet.'

Now it was Einfari's turn to stare at Nóttreiði in shock. 'And… you're okay with that?'

Nóttreiði rumbled smugly. 'Our goals for the moment seem to be perfectly aligned. Kill you have picked one out as "evil" and want to spare the rest is stupid, but I have no issues killing a single human in particular before moving on to the rest.'

'We both know that is not what I want,' Einfari snarled. 'I do not want to kill all of them, and you are not going to try. Dagur needs to die, and that is all. I would rather go home than set you on innocents.'

Heather would not rather go home, but she understood Einfari was making a point, not actually suggesting they'd do what Maour had wanted.

'Whatever,' Nóttreiði agreed. 'This trip, we aim to kill only one. And I am keeping you out of danger by helping. Father cannot complain, and neither can you. Not even it can complain,' he added sourly, glancing at Heather. 'Given it wants this human dead as much as I do.'

So he had been convinced of that, at least. Good. Maybe a common enemy could unite them for a time. "I, for one, am glad you want to help, Nóttreiði," she announced, entirely sincere. "A truce between us, on the condition of Dagur's death?" She was careful not to specify that the truce would end then, just what it was based on. Any cessation of hostility from Nóttreiði was precious, and she'd keep it alive as long as possible.

'Truce implies you mean us harm,' Nóttreiði growled, once again suspicious.

"No," Heather argued, "it implies you believe I will harm you, and I believe the same of you. It was just a turn of phrase." And a way to make him feel like she was allied with him, but that did not need to be said.

'I will help kill this human,' Nóttreiði specified. 'And when I find proof of your treachery, I will…' he glanced over at Einfari, 'take you home to be condemned.'

'As are our orders,' Einfari agreed tiredly, sounding only slightly enthused by any of this. 'So now we are three.'

Nóttreiði growled. 'With one purpose, and one purpose only.'

"Kill Dagur the Deranged." Heather grinned darkly. "Whatever it takes."

* * *

Maour laughed as he and Toothless soared through the night sky, only a few days away from Berk. "You know bud, I don't think I've ever been happier to go to Berk." This was going to be a quick and easy trip compared to what they had gone through with Dagur, despite the variety of dangers involved. In an earlier letter, Maour had told Gobber about the cave. When they got there, he would simply leave a note for Gobber, and they would meet there. In, get information, catch up with his old mentor, and out.

Toothless rumbled contentedly. 'Bar's not too high on that one.' He spun into another gut-wrenching dive. They hadn't really been able to cut loose for fear of leaving Einfari and Nóttreiði behind on the trip here. Toothless was determined to make up for lost time, it seemed.

They leveled out, and Maour continued the conversation, switching topics. "What do you think Nóttreiði's deal is?" This had been on his mind for a while.

Toothless hummed in concentration, flying level while he thought. 'I'm not sure. He's always angry. I feel like we're missed something, something important. Any other dragon would have calmed down by now, but he was suspiciously quiet after the fight with Dagur.'

Maour frowned. "Maybe he just didn't believe Heather's story. Having Dagur confirm it might have at least made him think?" That didn't seem like the whole reason. Nóttreiði still disliked Maour, and his past and loyalty were not in question.

Toothless was abruptly reminded of something. 'Well, being Dagur's brother and turning his offers of power down might have helped.'

"I had forgotten about that," Maour admitted. "It must really stink for Heather. You know, I think if she had been on her own and found out about that, she might actually have joined him. And promptly stabbed him in the back, but still." He was pretty sure Heather's well-founded hatred for Dagur wasn't something that would just go away, even if she had managed to put it away for the time being, which was a pleasant surprise.

Toothless purred thoughtfully. 'Einfari is good for her. She needed something to hold on to. If she ever makes any progress with Nóttreiði, she might be like you.'

"Don't jump too far ahead buddy, she's still got to get in good with Togi," Maour reminded Toothless. "And maybe Skarpur, though I don't think that will be too hard."

'Still, it is a possibility. Which leads to a question, one I don't know the answer to.'

"What is it?" He knew his brother well, but he had no idea where Toothless was going with that.

'She's a dragon-sympathising female of your age who is not Ruffnut, and does not seem to dislike you or have any prior commitments,' Toothless stated bluntly. 'I am wondering if you are at all interested. I cannot tell.'

Maour thought about it. "Bud, I had two hopes for any girl I might like. Good with dragons was one. Heather definitely meets that. The other was..." He trailed off.

Toothless understood now. 'Not a stone-cold killer, like Astrid turned out to be.'

Hiccup nodded. "In Heather's case, it would be understandable; she has more than enough reason. But I'm just not sure if I can ignore that. So, I'm not going to think about that for now. I'm waiting to see how this whole 'Dagur' situation turns out. Ask me then."

Toothless chuffed. 'Understandable on your part too. I hope she makes the right call, whatever that is.'

Maour sighed. "Speaking of Dagur... he hasn't changed at all. Except for the red beard stubble, that was new."

Toothless snorted. 'He certainly looks deranged. How did you know him again?'

Maour slumped. "He was the son of a chief, and I was too. He'd be brought over for meetings every other year to renew the treaty. He was just as insane back then. Using me as a knife-throwing target, legitimately trying to drown me, and so on. Horrible visits." He shuddered. Then he smiled. "It felt good to actually fight him and not get the yak dung kicked out of me in two seconds. I think I would have beaten him eventually if we hadn't had to leave." Of course, Dagur had been fighting at a disadvantage, on terrain that favored Maour, with a sword instead of his ax. Still, a win was a win.

Toothless snarled. 'If only he hadn't had the bright idea to throw his sword.' He shook his hurt paw, which still protested at any weight being put on it. 'We could have been rid of him then and there.'

Maour nodded. "Still, I'm glad we didn't just kill him with a plasma blast out of nowhere. That was why I froze. It was the only safe option, and I couldn't do it."

'But you can't keep freezing like that. We got lucky, again. Sooner or later, we will not get so lucky.'

"I know, I know!" Maour leaned back in aggravation. "I can't keep doing that. But I can't not try everything either."

Toothless growled discontentedly. 'Yes, you can. Here, a hypothetical situation. You have two options. One involves attacking first and killing in cold blood. That one has a high chance of succeeding. The other is some crazy plan that has a low chance. Which do you pick?'

"The crazy plan, because we can always go with the other plan if the first fails."

'As I thought. Now, consider this. You only get to try one plan, and our entire family is put in huge danger if the plan you pick fails.'

Maour was quiet for a while. "Low blow, Toothless. How can I chose between my own conscience and the safety of the people I love?"

Toothless huffed sadly. 'That's the point. Which is worth more to you?'

Maour knew the answer when the question was put like that, but it still felt wrong. Both answers felt wrong. "The people I love. But it still feels wrong."

'It does. But I know I'd stain my own conscience in a second to save Von, or Cloey, or Shadow, or those two eggs. I can live with having done something wrong if it means they're there to live alongside me. It doesn't mean I'd like it, or not regret whatever it is I had to do, but I'd do it anyway.'

Maour felt he had to object. "But there has to be some limit. If you can cross any line like that, why do the lines exist anyway? If you had to smash another dragon's egg to save Cloey's egg, would you?"

Toothless was silent for a while, apparently mulling it over, before suddenly roaring in frustration. 'Well... no! But I couldn't _not_ do it either!'

Maour sighed in relief. "Now you get it. That's how I feel about crossing any lines. There's something there, something important. I think, once you cross some lines, there's no way to go back. If you would be willing to do that, it would make you someone... lesser than you are right now." It was hard to put into words, but that was close. He was immensely relieved to know Toothless had lines too, even if they were a bit further back.

Toothless growled in aggravation. 'So, what's the answer? We can't just refuse to pick one.'

Maour laughed. "Break the rules. Find another way, one that does both. Think outside the box, however possible. Because yes or no scenarios like that don't exist in real life. There will always be another way."

Toothless purred smugly. 'Basically, cheat.'

"There are no rules. Just what you are willing to do, and what your opponent is."

The two brothers flew on, into the night, content with the knowledge that they were on the same page.

* * *

Dagur fumed as he stormed off of the boat. He couldn't believe just how badly that had gone. He was Dagur the Deranged, fearsome chief of the Berserker tribe. Nobody turned down an offer of power from him!

Whatever. She would come around sooner or later, and sooner if the persuading could be done here, on Berserker island. That meant the chase was still on, both for her and the cowardly dragon rider. Though, the dragon rider did have style. Dark, intimidating to lesser Vikings, and intelligent. Actually, he reminded Dagur of someone. He just wasn't sure who. That quip about the weapon in the face of a real death threat felt familiar.

Whatever. Here and now, Dagur had a new enemy. Actually... "Savage. Where is my enemies list?"

Savage cringed, clutching his now bandaged arm. "Sir, we got rid of it, remember? It was easier to just keep a 'not enemies' list. You know, the one with like three names on it."

"Whatever." Dagur kicked a passing cat. "Make sure the rider isn't on there." He grimaced. "And make sure Berk still is. I have an... interest in something there now." That hadn't changed, and his plans in that direction still made him smile. It was going to be a very interesting meeting of chieftains in a month.

"Sir, we know Heather is somewhere around here now. Should we recall the armada from the South?"

Dagur considered that. "No, not yet. The rider caught her around there, and it's as good a place to search as any. And I might need them out there for another reason later." His plans were many-layered, and one of the few things no one could call crazy. Well, the pre-planned ones. Savage checked them over to make sure there weren't any glaring flaws. This one he was making up as he went along, but it felt pretty well-done.

"And… should I add him to the _new _enemies list?" Savage asked.

"No, idiot, not that one." That one was a bit more specific, a hit list. The rider would just die whenever a Berserker got the chance to kill him; the enemies on _this _list would require a little more effort.

Effort, which was why the entire island was preparing for glorious conquest. Change was on the wind, and if he couldn't have another second-in-command for the coming glory, then he'd just have to work with the one he had now.

_**Author's Note: **_**I can honestly claim that the end to Heather's perspective in this chapter comes straight from the first draft, word for word, and was written long before the first **_**Avengers: Endgame **_**trailer came out. It's a very strange feeling, to quote something before the quote is known.**

**And for all the predictions of how this was going to fall out that fell flat- sorry, we're not done here yet. This story is still in some ways winding up, and a lot of the plot elements you all predicted would be resolved by this conflict have a little further to go first. Not a lot further, but a little.**

**In other news, I have almost finished another book, one unrelated to any of my previous works. It will not begin publishing until the end of my wifi-free Summer (I've got enough to publish as it is), but it will be done by the end of this week. Anyone who's interested, check out the description for _Taking Up the Mantle _in my profile; that's the one. _Truth of Legend_ is next, FYI.**


	15. Chapter 15

_**Author's Note: **_**Well, pretty sure nobody was expecting us to not follow Maour **_**or **_**Heather. Enjoy this little snippet from Astrid, and note that the first half of this chapter is a little bit of a rewind in the timeline, occurring before the events of last chapter (if you look back at last chapter and the one before that, you can see hints of what occurs here). **

Astrid stood at the bow of her personal warship, the lead vessel of the Berk fleet. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply and imagining what was to come.

The constant crash of waves on some foreign sand or soil, the crunch of dozens of boots making their way inland.

Howls of pain, signature screeches cut off mid-cry, replaced by gurgles or nothing at all. The feel of her ax cleaving scale and bone apart, cutting down her foes.

And then, after the glorious battle she and her forces were sure to win... Brittle crunching underfoot, as she strode through the defenseless den or nest, crushing Night Fury eggs beneath her boot, if there were any. Personally dealing death to any wounded survivors, savoring every blow, because each one corrected her only past failure-

Her eyes snapped open, and she gritted her teeth, her good mood gone in an instant. Failure. She had failed, years ago.

Hiccup had escaped, leaving with two Night Furies. That was her failure. She needed to hunt Hiccup and his dragons down, to fix it.

Not Hiccup. Svarturflugmaður. She remembered that and that alone of his one return to Berk. That name, so complex and foreign, survived what her often fractured memories obscured. She had trouble recalling certain things, even certain parts of her life. It was annoying, but she didn't really care. She did not need perfect memory to hunt. Anything that got in the way fell to her regardless.

Dragon or human. Stoick had learned that when he had tried to end her hunts several months ago. She and Snotlout had taught him together while he was at his kitchen table, carving wooden figures as a hobby. It was the only time his ever-present hammer wasn't within reach. Even so, Snotlout had gotten a nasty gash on his arm, and Stoick in that way had gone out fighting. But even the greatest warrior of his generation could not defend himself with several long knives in his back.

And once Stoick was dead, Snotlout was made chief. As she had Snotlout firmly under her thumb, she was content to let him be chief in name. As long as she had free reign to protect her ability to hunt, she did not care who officially wielded power. Berk saw Snotlout, a mildly charismatic and somewhat competent chief. She did not need Berk to see her as the real power, even if she was.

The hunt was all that mattered.

Astrid inhaled again and forced herself to calm down. The hunt had not yet begun. The ships were docked in Berk's harbor, not out at sea, searching, as she would rather they be even now. They weren't going to leave until after the meeting of chiefs in about six weeks, and she still didn't know which direction they would be going when they left.

She left the docked ship and made her way through the village, noticing with resignation the little holes in the crowd. Even after five years, no one knew where Fishlegs, Ruffnut, or Tuffnut had gone. Just recently, the three parents they had between them on Berk had left, apparently in search of them. She didn't really care, but it was something she noticed all the same.

Today, she remembered with something approaching boredom, was special. Apparently, today was the day Dagur was expected to arrive for the yearly treaty signing. It would be the first time Snotlout interacted with Dagur as a chief. Astrid wouldn't care, but she knew Dagur couldn't be allowed to roll right over Snotlout, which he would if she wasn't there. It might end up affecting her ability to hunt, which wouldn't be tolerable.

So, for the first time in six years, Astrid was on Berk the day Dagur was supposed to be there. The last few years it had actually just been luck that she wasn't present. Her frequent short trips around the immediate neighborhood of islands to hunt dragons had happened to keep her off-island on those previous visits. She hadn't seen Dagur in quite a while. This should be at least mildly interesting.

She entered the Great Hall and saw that Snotlout was there, stuffing his face as usual. He seemed to be trying to work his way up to Stoick's weight and stature, at least over the last few months. No noticeable change as of yet except for a developing pudge around the middle and a decrease in energy. She walked over and sat down opposite him, choosing to speak softly. Some concessions had to be made to retain the illusion. "Dagur arrives today."

Snotlout nodded. He had learned quickly not to talk around her with his mouth full.

Astrid smiled grimly. "Hand him off to me as quickly as possible. I'll deal with him, and send him on his way. While I'm doing that, tour his armada. It will make you look important, and you can see how well-equipped they are." That would be mildly useful. It was pretty much the upper limit of what she trusted Snotlout to do. Act important, with a little sneaky spying on the side.

Snotlout knew better than to protest. Not that he would want to. Astrid vaguely recalled hearing that Dagur had not taken easily to the idea that Hiccup, his preferred target, was gone. Even more so because of the standing law of silence concerning Hiccup's departure. As far as visitors to Berk were concerned, Hiccup was a traitor for some unspecified reason and implied dead. Given Dagur was a dangerous lunatic, Snotlout would have no problems handing him off to her.

"Good. I'll be here, bring him here straight from the docks." Astrid sat and watched as Snotlout headed off, and the Great Hall gradually emptied. She idly examined the various relics of their dragon-killing past lining the walls, noticing as she did that Gobber had stayed in the Hall and was downing another tankard of mead.

He had been everywhere in recent years. She suspected the forge brought back now unpleasant memories, so he wandered the village instead of being there whenever possible. He was a helpful assistant, sometimes. Other times, he apparently let the mead get the better of him. Nowadays, though he was always slightly drunk, he was loyal.

She was sure he suspected that Stoick had not died of natural causes, but the fact that he held his tongue implied to her that he understood why it needed to happen.

She idly traced the large map of the archipelago on the central table, her finger lingering on the outline of Berk, wondering which way to sail. North, East, South, West? She had no leads, and no direction offered itself as preferable. Her mood soured in an instant, and she stabbed a knife into the map and table. At that moment there was a muffled thud as the doors to the Great hall swung open.

She noticed with shock that it was noon outside and struggled to accept that she had really been there for so long. It was another troubling loss of concentration. She felt like it had only been minutes.

Snotlout and Dagur were the ones who had entered the Hall. Dagur seemed annoyed, but his face lit up on seeing her. He turned to Snotlout and laughed. "Alright, you have fun touring my armada!" He gave him a not-so-subtle shove towards the door. As the doors swung closed behind Snotlout, Dagur sneered. "Idiot."

Astrid rose and walked to meet him. "I trust the voyage here was smooth sailing?"

Dagur groaned. "Of course. I've already gone through all of this with the not-so-chiefly snot."

Astrid led him to an out of the way table in the corner. "Some illusions need to be maintained. He does well enough with the idiots who think he rules Berk." She could tell Dagur had seen straight through the ruse. Though obviously insane, he was still sharp. That was the only explanation for why he still ruled. Nobody could overthrow him.

Dagur chuckled knowingly. "Of course. I prefer to rule through fear, but a figurehead works too." He grimaced, the light mood gone in an instant. "So, what happened to Stoick the old and fat? I thought that ancient relic would last another few decades."

Astrid smiled. Time to lay it on the table. "Something you are very familiar with. He had grown complacent." She didn't need to elaborate.

Dagur laughed long and hard at that. "Of course. Any specific reason, or was he just getting annoying?" He seemed genuinely interested now.

"He wanted to shut down my dragon-hunts, and had been limiting my range for years. He said they served no point, and brought in almost no dragons each time. That was not acceptable."

"Really?" Dagur seemed... thoughtful. "I mean, he wasn't entirely wrong. Dragons have become really scarce and spread out." He slumped. "It's just no fun around here anymore!"

Astrid sneered derisively. "Hunting dragons isn't something I do for fun. I wouldn't let him interfere any longer." She gestured to the map on the table. "This year's hunt will go ten times further than ever before. We'll search every island in our path, killing every dragon we encounter. Hopefully, we'll find nests." She grinned. "Crushing eggs is much more efficient."

Dagur abruptly leaned forward, staring into Astrid's eyes. He seemed to almost be searching for something. He spoke, still leaning forward. "You're an idiot."

Astrid grew cold with anger. Her knife was in her hand and pressed against his throat in an instant. "I'd say you are."

Dagur... smiled, and leaned back. "Calm down, I had to be sure." He regarded her with genuine... was that joy?

Astrid really wasn't sure what was going on now. "Sure of what?" She kept the knife out.

Dagur lowered his voice. "You're quite good at hiding it, or maybe controlling it. Better than I am, that's for sure. But it's obvious to me. Takes one to know one, they say." His smile grew wider. "So, how long?"

"I don't know what you're trying to imply."

"Come on. First, you act pretty paranoid, spinning around the second we open the door to the Great Hall, a good fifty feet away. Then, you admit to having offed Stoick, because he got in your way, even though I always had you pegged as the loyal type. You're fixated on killing dragons. Your mood swings faster than a Terror dies. The last piece of evidence I needed was in your eyes. The second I insulted you, I could see it. You should be careful about that if you want to hide it. It'll be pretty obvious eventually." He spoke as if what all that meant should be obvious.

Astrid pointed her knife at his face. "Stop talking in circles."

"Alright, apparently you either don't know or are the best actor ever. You're as crazy as I am, and because I recognize your particular symptoms, I'm going to guess it affects you the same way as me. Had any loss of time recently? Bad judgment in moments of stress? Trouble remembering random things?" Dagur's voice was still low, and this was the most lucid Astrid had ever seen him.

"I don't..." Astrid thought back to everything that had happened. "Yes. To all of those questions." She needed to know what he knew. Because he was right.

Dagur smiled smugly. "Thought so. Don't worry, you get used to it. If you really need to, you can control it somewhat. Like I'm doing now. The mood swings are a pain, but if you know they're coming, you can ignore most of them. It usually isn't worth the effort."

Astrid was shaking a little now. "Why are you bothering now?"

Dagur didn't respond for a second, but when he did speak he was serious. "Because I want you to listen to me."

Astrid sighed. "You can stop controlling it. It's creepy when you do." She considered what she had just learned. "I don't really care, to be honest." Now that she looked at her past actions with Dagur's insinuations, she could see every sign he had pointed out, going back years. If it didn't affect her hunt, then it didn't matter.

Dagur sighed happily. "And that is what makes you perfect. You don't care about it." He saw the look on her face. "Seriously. Do you know how hard it is to find anyone who isn't freaked out by all of this? It just so happens you don't care because you're the same."

Astrid laughed scornfully. "If I'm crazy, why does everything I've done still feel right? Looking back, I can't see a single thing I would do differently now. Even the failures, because-"

Dagur interrupted. "Because they were never your fault. It was always someone else. Problem is, that's not true. Plenty of them were your fault." He grimaced. "Took me forever to figure that out. But you can't trust your own judgment anymore. Find someone sane to run the important stuff by, and don't get rid of them, no matter how aggravating they are. It's something of a mental blind spot. Ignoring it will trip you up, over and over again." He laughed scornfully. "I hate Savage, but he's smarter than the average Berserker, so I give him power and let him disagree with me. No matter how much I want to kill him for it sometimes. You gotta have someone you can trust, even if it's only to act in their own best interest. Savage likes power but hates danger. Being my second keeps him in power, and safe from both me and the hazards of being chief. So he won't ever try to take over or sabotage me."

Astrid snorted. "What is this, a 'tips for crazy people' meeting? I don't need your help. I was doing fine yesterday, I'll do fine tomorrow."

"Wrong. Because now you know. You'll constantly second-guess yourself, missing the important mistakes among checking your own every move. You've been doing fine because you didn't know. Now, it's going to become more and more obvious the more you fight it." He smiled slyly. "So, if you're like me, what's your purpose?" He took in her questioning look and elaborated. "I'm pretty sure for you it involves killing dragons. For me, it's making the Berserker tribe as great and feared as possible. You need to know because it's also your greatest weakness. It blinds you and influences every decision, a guaranteed string for anyone to pull."

Astrid slammed her knife into the table and gritted out the only thing she could ever concentrate on, the thing that occupied every other thought. "Being the best Viking possible. Which means killing dragons. Specifically, Night Furies. As many as possible. Hence the Nest hunts. Also, I hate you." She hated how the crazy guy was guessing her every thought and seemed to know every corner of her apparently damaged brain better than she herself did.

"Interesting. And that's temporary. Hating me, that is, not the obsession. That will never change." Dagur frowned for a moment. "Actually, I don't know what would happen if either of us reached our goals. They don't seem achievable. There will always be a way to improve my tribe, and there's no way you can kill every dragon in existence in one lifetime."

Astrid voiced the thought that had been rattling around in her head for a few minutes now. "You seem surprisingly aware for a crazy guy. More aware than you let on to everyone else."

Dagur grinned. "Like I said. Controlling it isn't usually worth the effort. Just embrace the crazy and let it work for you. Not good advice for most lunatics, but it's worked wonders for me."

Astrid grinned now. "How many others have you given this advice to?"

"None. This is the first time I've ever encountered anyone with the same problem. I've seen plenty of crazies, but they're no good. No control whatsoever. We're some sort of halfway state, from what I can tell. Insane, and aware of it."

Astrid liked the sound of that. She was coming to terms with this, quite quickly in fact. Dagur was right, it wasn't so bad. And she realized that Dagur wasn't at all as bad as she had thought, now that she knew him. Knew him, and knew she was like him. How could she hate someone who thought like her; acted like her?

Dagur sighed. "So, now what?"

"Chiefly crap. Treaty to sign, all that yak dung." No point in putting up any facades with Dagur. They knew each other now. It was hard to deceive someone who thought as she did.

Dagur abruptly returned to attention from his slouch. "That reminds me. I'm looking for someone. A woman, about twenty-two or so, black hair, green eyes, named Heather. Ever seen her?"

Astrid searched her cloudy memories. "Yes, actually. She washed up on our shore about four years ago. Stayed in the village for a few weeks, and then left without a word." She grinned. "Wayward girlfriend?"

Dagur flinched. "Definitely not. I need her captured, alive. She's been evading my armada for almost a year now." He walked over to the map, and Astrid followed. "She's somewhere out here." He took the knife she had slammed into the table and replaced it a few feet beyond the edge of the map, directly South of Berk. "Any chance your Nest search could head that direction and keep their eyes open for her? I mean, if you're going out anyway. She's out in that direction somewhere, or at least that's the last area my ships reported tracking her to. She might already be caught and on her way back, but whatever."

Astrid eyed the knife. "Sure, we might as well. I was just going to pick a direction at random. We'll be going after the meeting of chiefs in six weeks."

Dagur laughed. "I'll be there. Will you?" He leaned forward. "I definitely want to see you again."

Astrid pushed him away. "Too far, Dagur."

"Why? We're perfect for each other. No one else can even stand to be around me, and eventually you too. Wasn't Snotlout chasing after you years ago? Now he doesn't even look at you like that. It's not like you have other prospects."

That struck a chord in Astrid. She didn't really care, but he was right. "You'll have to do much better than that to convince me." But she was open to being convinced. Why not?

Dagur laughed. "On it. I'll be ready by the meeting."

After that, they got to the treaty, and Dagur signed his part without even waiting for Snotlout to get back. They spent hours talking. Both found it liberating to speak to someone so like-minded. No morals, no doubt, and one overpowering goal. Dagur loved being able to talk to someone who didn't find him scary or annoying, and Astrid enjoyed talking openly, and not hiding anything. Not that she mentioned anything whatsoever about the events surrounding Hiccup. It wasn't intentional, she just didn't like to think about that stuff, and as a result, deftly steered the conversation away from it, so unconsciously neither of them even noticed.

Both quite enjoyed Snotlout's look of astonishment when he returned to the Great Hall and saw them happily talking. Astrid saw Dagur off and even waved. He waved back enthusiastically, before punching a slacking guard nearby. She turned to Snotlout, who was looking at her in a mixture of fear and awe.

Astrid asked angrily, "What?"

Snotlout gestured vaguely at the departing armada. "How did you do that? He's never happy. Never! He always leaves annoyed, bored, or angry."

Astrid smiled threateningly. "Apparently, we have more in common than either of us thought." She would leave it at that.

* * *

A week later, Astrid was in the Great Hall, eating breakfast, when a Viking rushed in. He was panting, but his words were still discernible. "Bog-Burglar... embassy... docking now."

Snotlout jumped and looked around warily. "Is Bertha with them?" The chief of the Bog-burglar tribe did not like him after an incident involving him failing miserably to hit on her daughter. Sometimes Astrid wondered if it was a mistake to have a figurehead who had such issues with diplomacy.

"No... embassy led... by Camicazi."

Astrid frowned. That was Bertha's daughter. She caught the attention of the Viking. "Is Camicazi the new chief?"

"No... just here... because Bertha's already... sailing for the meeting." That made sense, given the Bog-Burglar's geographic location in relation to the meeting island and Berk. Camicazi was most likely here to negotiate some sort of pre-meeting trade deal, to spite some other tribe at the meeting later.

Astrid frowned. The Bog-Burglars were shaky allies at best. Even that had been some sort of personal truce between Stoick and Bertha. She vaguely remembered hearing stories about how they would try and one-up each other in their youth. She wasn't entirely sure if they would even still be allies, once the Bog-Burglars found out Stoick was gone.

Snotlout laughed. "Good. Wonder what she wants?" He stood and stretched. "Well, time to impress the ladies. Lead on."

Astrid didn't interfere. She would let Snotlout do the talking. There wasn't that much he could mess up right now. The Bog-Burglars weren't exactly the strongest tribe so she wasn't too worried about breaking the alliance with them. In fact, Berk might be better off without them. She was pretty sure there was a mutual defense agreement in the current alliance, and she had no desire to go to war to protect the Bog-Burglars.

Camicazi met them in the middle of the village. She was supposed to have waited on the boat, but she never had been good at following orders. Astrid looked down on her. Literally, because Camicazi was a short woman, though thin. She had wild blond hair and constantly shifting eyes. She was apparently an excellent thief and not an idiot like most Vikings. And, Astrid remembered with a grimace, she had been friends with Hiccup. Camicazi had not been at all satisfied with their vague condemnation of him at her last visit with her mother.

The Bog-Burglar heiress spoke first, smiling slightly. "So, where's Stoick? I need to talk to him. And make it fast, Snotty. I've got to get to the meeting island as soon as possible. This is just a quick side-trip."

Snotlout smirked and puffed himself up. "Stoick is gone. I am Snotlout, chief of Berk." He leered at her. "So you'll be talking to me."

Camicazi laughed. "Right, Right. Sure. As if you were even close to capable of being chief. The position requires at least some intelligence. You aren't qualified."

Astrid interrupted. "He is chief, and I am his advisor." She disliked Camicazi, more now than ever before. There was just something about her that rubbed Astrid the wrong way. So, she spoke harshly, trying to drive home that Camicazi had just insulted the chief of Berk.

Camicazi stared at both of them. "Well, that's... interesting. Not that I believe it." She darted over to a passing resident of Berk and spoke to him. "Quick, who is your chief?"

"Snotlout. Why?" The man kept walking when Camicazi didn't respond.

Astrid barely noticed Camicazi's eyes narrow slightly, and she definitely noticed that Camicazi hadn't pick-pocketed the man while she was questioning him. From the little she had interacted with the girl, those things were abnormal.

Camicazi strode over to Snotlout. Her voice was hard and toneless. "So I am going to have to deal with you."

Snotlout laughed. "You say that like it's a bad thing." He flexed. "I'm the perfect image of a Viking chief!"

Camicazi turned to Astrid. "And you must be the brain behind the mindless muscle."

Astrid nodded subtly, then gestured to Snotlout. "But you'll be dealing with him, not me." That was pure spite on her part. She could deal with Camicazi directly, as she had Dagur. But Camicazi so clearly despised Snotlout, now more than ever.

Camicazi turned to Snotlout, mouth twisting in distaste. "Alright then, let's make this quick. Bertha wants to expand one of our smaller trade deals. Doubling the amount of export and import in the wool for leather deal."

Snotlout smirked. "Why? The Bog-Burglars run out of sheep to steal from other islands?"

Camicazi visibly restrained herself. "I don't really know why. Mom just thought it was a convenient excuse to get a ship of Bog-Burglars into Berk for a few hours." Her eyes narrowed, and her voice was soft. "We like to pick up how the wind is blowing with our allies. Right now, my entire crew is mingling with your people, and picking up as much information as possible. So, anything you want to tell me now before I go hear what they've uncovered?" She smirked evilly at Snotlout, who was staring at her. "Like, as an example, what really happened to Hiccup? I don't buy your yak-dung story about how he somehow betrayed the tribe and was killed, especially when you're more vague about it than with Alvin the Treacherous. It's been a long time, but I think I'm going to hear the truth when I go back to my ship. Bog-Burglars are skilled at manipulation. People talk."

That was one subject Astrid wouldn't let slip. There was no way Camicazi was going back to her mother with that particular information if her spies had managed to pick out even some of the truth here. She whipped her ax out and had it at Camicazi's neck in an instant. Her paranoia had left her in the perfect position to strike at the heiress, and she was thankful for that. "Or maybe you won't learn anything at all. Ever."

Snotlout faltered for an instant, and then helped Astrid, moving to Camicazi's back, his sword at her spine. He looked over at Astrid. "Now what?"

Camicazi clearly hadn't been expecting anything like this. Her eyes were wide, and she wasn't moving a muscle.

Astrid smirked. "Well Snotlout, maybe when you go to the meeting, you should renegotiate our alliance with the Bog-Burglars. With the heiress as a bargaining chip." By that, she meant that she would, through Snotlout. If she played it right, she could force Bertha into a very one-sided deal, and making it in front of the other chiefs would make it unbreakable for her. Camicazi had just become very useful.

Snotlout noticed a Bog-Burglar staring at them. "You, Burglar! Go tell your friends that Camicazi dies if all of you aren't on your ship in half an hour!" He looked to Astrid.

Astrid nodded. "Then we'll send them back to Bertha, to carry the news. In the meantime..." She looked down at Camicazi.

* * *

Astrid and Snotlout escorted Camicazi to Berk's jail personally. They threw the Bog-Burglar heiress into the deepest, darkest cell. That wasn't out of spite, but necessity. Bog-Burglars were adept at escaping. It came with the occupation. This cell had been carved out of raw stone, and the only way in or out was locked, with the actual lock far out of reach from the inside. Simple but effective.

Camicazi stood, shaking with anger. "So, this is how chief Snotlout treats his allies. Good to know."

Snotlout smirked. "Only the weak ones." He left the prison, satisfied that his work here was done.

Astrid did not leave with him. She stared into the cell and met Camicazi's eyes. "Asking questions around here is dangerous."

Camicazi sneered at her. "Knowledge is only dangerous to the people who have something to hide. So, did Snotlout kill Hiccup, or did you?" Her eyes were cold.

Astrid considered what to say. "Does it matter?"

"Yes. Because we were friends. I had fun playing with him on our visits as kids. He would have made ten times the chief Snotlout is, even if he wasn't much of a Viking, and he wouldn't have needed you to do it."

Astrid laughed. "He was never going to be chief. Snotlout was always going to take that from him. He was too weak to keep it." Let Camicazi believe Hiccup was dead. He might as well be. She then decided to let Camicazi in on a little secret, just to rattle the girl's confidence. "Oh, by the way. Stoick went the way of Oswald." With that, she left, leaving the Bog-Burglar heiress to rot in that cell. Probably for quite a while. They wouldn't actually bring her to the meeting, so Camicazi was likely going to be there for months.

But it would not do to be complacent. She went to draft up a new treaty with the Bog-Burglars. One that was really more of a ransom agreement. Everything the Burglars could spare and survive, in exchange for their heir. It would humiliate their entire tribe, and Astrid had no problem doing that. Any benefit to Berk would trickle down into her Nest hunts. That was all that mattered.

* * *

Camicazi searched the inside of her cell. She had her lock-picks, but they were no help when she couldn't reach the lock. She couldn't fit through the bars, and she came to the conclusion that her cell was empty of anything useful. It was really just a hole cut into the rock. So much for that.

She sat down, clearing her head. To escape here, she needed a weakness to exploit. She would wait until they came with food or something. Anything that meant the door would be open. She would have to figure out a way off of the island first though. There was no point in escaping the cell if she couldn't escape the entire prison. Right now, Berk was her prison.

But she could see no way out of here. All of Berk's ships had been guarded from what she saw sailing in. It was an island, after all. No way out, other than a ship.

That was it. Camicazi smiled. She'd wait until the Berkians were about to leave for the meeting, break out, and hide on those ships. If she stayed hidden long enough, they'd bring her to freedom themselves. Then she could tell her mother what had happened.

She frowned. Berk was definitely no longer their ally. And the Bog-Burglars needed allies. Otherwise, the stronger tribes would take them apart. It was hard to even maintain neutral status with most islands, thanks to their thieving nature. But that was who they were, and they weren't about to change.

Her mother needed to know that, apparently, Astrid and Snotlout had offed Stoick, and Hiccup to boot. Untrustworthy allies were worse than no allies. Killing the chief and his heir definitely did not speak well of Astrid's trustworthiness, never mind this current betrayal.

It hurt to learn that Hiccup was definitely dead. She had always liked that scrawny fishbone. He was fun to be around, and never gave up. Despite everyone around him despising him. She wondered what had happened. He had seemed a little depressed the last time she had seen him, but that had been... was it six years ago, now? A very long time. And now he was gone for sure.

_**Author's Note: **_**Well, she's finally here. It's been what, thirty or so chapters since I first mentioned the person Hiccup had learned to pick locks from? Camicazi has been promised for quite a while, and I know a few of you were looking forward to her appearance. Don't worry, she plays a not-insignificant part in this story, and it has already begun.**

**Also, just in case anyone is confused, though I tried to make it clear, yes, Dagur did just direct Astrid's nest hunt in the right direction without even trying to. Aren't interlocking threads of fate fun? It's Heather's fault for fleeing in that direction, in the end, that has pointed Astrid that way, and that was pure chance, as well as chance that happened months ago, only now coming into play.**


	16. Chapter 16

Camicazi had been in her cell for far too long now. She was fairly sure the inactivity would drive her crazy. There weren't even any guards within earshot to torment. So, when a new person brought her food, she jumped at the chance to do something, anything.

Even if that something was admitting her memory of times past wasn't as good as it could be. This particular Viking seemed familiar, but that was all. "I think I remember you..." she remarked.

The old man with two prosthetic limbs laughed quietly. "O' course ye do. No one forgets old Gobber." He handed Camicazi the plate of food.

Camicazi eyed him. He seemed drunk. Maybe she could take advantage of that; practice her pick-pocketing. She moved forward, taking the plate and subtly fishing around in his pocket at the same time. Just a bit of parchment. Still better than nothing, so she lifted it-

Gobber's good hand grabbed her arm. His eyes were cold, and his voice ice. All signs of drunkenness had vanished, and in their place was a very different person. "Drop it. Now."

Camicazi grinned, unphased by his rapid shift in mood. "Or what? You can't exactly kill me. Astrid and Snotlout need me alive." She had that insurance.

Gobber stared back at her. "I don't care what they want. Drop it."

Camicazi let go of the parchment and watched as Gobber carefully put it back into his pocket. It was a large parchment, whatever it was, one that had been folded into a small square for easy concealment. It looked a bit old. "Fine. What's so special about it anyway?"

Gobber shrugged. "Sentimental value." Then he grinned. "Eat quickly. I gave the guard a break, but he might come back sooner or later."

Camicazi eyed the old man appraisingly. "What is this?"

"Just a wee jailbreak."

"I was going to break out on my own. And how do you plan on getting me off the island?" She wasn't sure how well thought through this plan was.

"It'll be a surprise. But I promise ye, it's a good plan. When ye get out inta the village, head to the forge. There's a little back room no one ever goes into."

Camicazi raised an eyebrow. "And you?"

"I'll need ya to knock me out before ya go. Don't worry, I have a hard head." He thumped his helmet. "Can't blow my cover." At that, he frowned angrily. "I still have a score to settle, and a few wrongs to right. Anythin' that spites Astrid is good in my book, and yers, I think."

Camicazi would question this strange blacksmith later. "Fine. I assume I'll have to wait for you."

Gobber nodded. "Yep. Then we'll get on with step two." He held out a wooden bludgeon. "Brought this for ya. Take it with you." He grinned at her and saluted with his hook arm. "See you soon!"

Camicazi nodded and hit him with the bludgeon. Camicazi walked out of the cell and took the bludgeon from Gobber. A hard swing knocked him out cold, but she was careful to avoid hitting too hard and giving him a concussion. She stepped over Gobber, checked that he was still breathing, and carefully creeped out of the jail, eyes constantly darting around for anybody around. So far, the coast was clear.

The next half-hour was spent slowly creeping through the village. There were more guards and night watchmen than she remembered, and they made the going slow, but eventually, she made it to the forge. She carefully vaulted over the counter into the building rather than going for the door, which might squeak.

The forge looked empty, and sure enough, there was a small door in the back. It was well hidden by the mess of the entire building, and she noticed that the door handle itself was dusty. That was odd. It really did look like no one went back there.

She carefully opened the door and stepped into a small work area. The parchments and designs on the walls were familiar. This place must have been Hiccup's. She fought back a small wave of sadness. Focus on the here and now.

She listened carefully, but nothing was out of the ordinary. It would be a while before they discovered Gobber. Once they did, they would search the entire village. Probably not the woods of Berk though. They knew her only way off the island was at the docks. They would just station guards there and wait. She had no other way out. Whatever Gobber's plan was, hopefully he had accounted for that.

Still, this was at least exciting. Worth the uncertainty just for that. Not at the moment though. She looked at some of Hiccup's schematics. Most of them made no sense to her, but the little she could see followed a pattern. They were all for dragon killing. Capturing dragons, shooting down dragons. From the big X drawn through each one, she could tell none of them had worked. Although looking around, she could still see recognizable pieces of these past creations.

This room was depressing. The Hiccup she knew was happy, and not all that interested in fighting. He had apparently grown desperate to prove himself. This was a hall of failure. Even his biggest strength, his mind, had apparently not been enough.

But then she saw something. A pile of shredded parchment in a corner. This place really hadn't been touched. She picked through the parchment, and on an oddly clear desk, pieced together what had been torn apart. Another weapon design, simpler than the rest, though that wasn't saying much. It seemed to shoot bolas at the touch of a trigger. There were two apparently contradictory marks on the design. One was a massive checkmark through it. The other, written right over the checkmark, was a violently slashed X. The schematic had been torn to shreds and trashed after that.

That was a bit disturbing. Camicazi wondered if Gobber could tell her what had happened. She spent a few more hours in the room, idly waiting. After about an hour, the commotion outside started. She assumed Gobber had been found. The village was searched, as predicted.

From what she could hear, Gobber was an active and vocal member of the search, insistent on looking through his forge himself, and pronouncing it clear without ever opening the door to the little room she was in. She smiled at that. The blacksmith was apparently quite the actor when he wanted to be.

Another realization dawned on her. There was way more to Gobber than met the eye. He had apparently been faking being drunk when he entered the jail. He put together quite an elaborate rescue scheme for the heir to the Bog-Burglars, against his own chief. He was a good actor, and he didn't want to 'blow his cover'. All of that taken together indicated that he was a spy or informant of some sort.

But for who? Not the Outcasts, of that she was certain. Gobber had a very good reason to hate Alvin, from what her mother had told her. Other than that, who would even want to spy on Berk?

Still, he was helping her. She didn't care who he was working for right now. She greeted him with a smile when he finally opened the door to the room, a few hours after the search had died down, or at least moved on. "Quite the performance."

Gobber chuckled. "Well, let's get a move on." He checked a piece of parchment in his hand. "We're heading ta the other side of the island, apparently."

That was interesting. Gobber was working with someone. "Why?"

Gobber put the parchment away. "Honestly, you bein' here was jus' a coincidence. I was goin' out there tonight anyway." He seemed very happy, almost excited. "Follow me. The forests o' Berk aren't the easiest for walkin'." He turned to leave the forge, facing the woods that bordered it.

Camicazi was preoccupied. She had successfully snagged both the parchment Gobber had just put away, and the larger one from earlier, without Gobber noticing this time. She quickly scanned the smaller one, saving the bigger one for later.

_'Gobber. Your information is troubling. I'll be in the cave system I told you about on the far side of the island, tonight.'_

That was all it said. Not much help. She pocketed the parchments and followed the blacksmith into the woods.

* * *

There was a full moon tonight, and plenty of light to see by. Gobber carried an unlit torch, presumably for these caves mentioned in the note. Neither of them spoke as they navigated the woods. At least, not at first. But Camicazi had one important question. "What if we run into a wild dragon out here?" Dragons were scarce now, but there might be one or two around.

Gobber sighed. "Not goin' ta happen. Astrid taught them to fear Berk. Not a wild dragon for miles around." There was a hint of something in those last words. Something left unsaid or implied.

Whatever it was, Camicazi didn't catch it. "Good." She had no desire to be attacked in the woods at night with only a wooden cudgel for a weapon. Her knives had been confiscated. They were only her second-best pair, but still.

Eventually, they stopped. Camicazi couldn't see why. This section of forest was no different from any other. Then Gobber walked straight forward, into a solid hillside.

Camicazi laughed, amazed. The underbrush was so thick, she didn't even see what must have been a cave entrance. It looked like Gobber had simply disappeared in front of her eyes. She followed carefully and waited while Gobber lit the torch.

The light revealed a curiously uniform circular tunnel leading into the hillside. She followed the blacksmith, who confidently walked into the caves. They reached something of a three-way intersection, but Gobber chose one of the two ways and kept going without even stopping to think about it. A few minutes later, she could see a light in the distance. It was the moon's light. They had come to...

Camicazi stopped. There was a circular disc of white-blue, the moon reflecting off of the ocean in the distance, visible from the exit of the cave, apparently dug into a vertical cliff. She could see a figure outlined by the sight, a black silhouette in the middle of the circle, and what looked like a tall boulder right next to him, also only a silhouette thanks to the moonlight. It didn't help that Gobber had put out the torch for some reason.

"It's been a long time," Gobber remarked slowly.

The figure stood and turned to face them. "Yes, it has. I only wish this particular reunion was under better circumstances. And who is this?"

Camicazi felt she knew that voice, but it was just different enough that she couldn't place it.

"Really, Hiccup? She hasn't changed a bit!" Gobber's voice was humorous. "Your memory is better than mine. Don't tell me ya forgot Camicazi?"

With that, Camicazi understood... a little bit. "Hiccup?"

The one who had to be Hiccup flinched. "No. Gobber, you know I don't go by that name."

Gobber sighed. "Right, sorry. Hard ta remember, seein' as I never have to say either. It's been five years, and maybe as many letters between us."

Camicazi felt like screaming. She _hated _being confused. "Care to explain... I don't know, everything? Nothing I've seen makes any sense here, Hiccup."

Hiccup laughed. His voice was deeper than she remembered, if only slightly. "You don't know a hundredth of it. And the name's Maour now."

Camicazi chuckled. "Right. Sorry, but you never even liked nicknames. I don't believe you changed your name."

Hiccup groaned. "Seriously? If it helps you believe it, I didn't change my name. I was given new ones, ones I prefer over Hiccup. Maour is not a nickname, and it's the easiest of my names to remember and pronounce."

Camicazi grinned at that. "This I've gotta hear." The entire situation was funny to her. Here Hiccup was, apparently not dead, hiding out on his own island, with a blacksmith as a spy for him. It was something absurd enough that she wished she had come up with it.

"Don't say I didn't warn you. My other name is Svarturflugmaður. Happy?" Hiccup seemed more amused than anything.

"So I guess I'll call you... Svarty! Because apparently, you don't mind nicknames now!" That was nice.

Hiccup laughed at her. "Sorry, it doesn't work like that. Maour or nothing, for you."

Camicazi sighed, deciding to wait until he had forgotten about it to push the nickname. "Fine. If you'll explain why you haven't kicked Snotlout out to sea along with Astrid, and taken your rightful place as chief. Seriously, you've had how long? Six years?" He was wasting time.

Hiccup stiffened. "Because I couldn't really care less who rules Berk. And I have no right to rule here anyway, even if I wanted to."

Gobber had been watching all of this impassively. He sighed at that. "Ye'd still be a better option. Ye should come back and-"

"No, Gobber. I appreciate all of your help, but you know better than most why I won't do that."

Camicazi didn't like that. "The Hiccup I know wouldn't just give up like that. What's happened to you?"

Hiccup laughed scornfully, something Camicazi couldn't remember ever hearing before. "I didn't give up on myself. I gave up on Berk, and found something better. Feel free to take it up with my brother, Svarturkappi."

At that, the silhouetted boulder next to him opened its eyes. Large, almost glowing green eyes. That wasn't a boulder.

Camicazi jumped in fright, and Gobber took a few steps back.

"Really, Gobber?" Hiccup asked. "You know very well he means you no harm." He gestured to the torch. 'And we appreciate you putting that out, though I'm not sure why you did, but some light might help you two see."

Gobber hastily struck his flint a few times. As he did, he spoke. "I know ye _say _it's fine. Bu' that's a dragon, five feet away. It's gonna take me some time to adjust." He muttered the rest. "And I still cannae believe half of it."

Camicazi stared at the two figures illuminated by Gobber's newly relit torch. She couldn't even speak.

Maour looked at her and sighed. "Well, she's out of it for a few minutes. Gobber, good to see you again." He walked over and hugged the old blacksmith. "It's been too long."

Gobber smiled. "That it has. And ye've grown, too. Taller than me, now!" He gestured to the inch height difference. "Apparently life's been treating you well."

"And you. Still alive and kicking, despite the boredom surrounding you."

Gobber waved his hook for emphasis. "There's no blacksmithing to be done most days, and no raids to fight off." He glanced at the dragon in the corner, who was eyeing him. "I didn't go on any of Astrid's huntin' missions, for obvious reasons."

Hiccup followed his gaze. "Seriously. Toothless is my brother, please at least try to trust him a little." He paused before continuing. "He says you look exactly the same as the last time he saw you."

Okay, things were well past 'strange' now. Camicazi dropped back into a shadow, waiting and observing. No more fun and games. This was serious, and possibly very dangerous. That dragon was one she didn't know, and Hiccup was speaking nonsense… that Gobber took seriously. She could get back to teasing Hiccup once she understood why they weren't all dead yet.

Gobber scratched his head. "When was that?"

Hiccup shrugged. "Training in the arena, probably. Or after we killed the Queen. Probably the first one, because we were a bit preoccupied during the other one."

Gobber frowned. "Aye, disowning yerself and casting yerself from Berk in front of half tha village musta been pretty distracting." There was sarcasm there.

Hiccup met his eyes with a level stare. "I don't regret it. The few Berkians capable of change found their way to me, except for you. You stayed and gave me information. Everyone else isn't willing to understand. With Stoick, Astrid, and Snotlout all trying to kill me, did you really think I'd stay?."

Gobber sighed. "Aye, but ye could'a stayed and tried."

The dragon snarled. Hiccup turned to look at him and responded to Gobber, still staring at the dragon. "I had no reason to try, and every reason not to risk it. Not just for myself, but for Toothless, and Cloey. Do you really think I would have stayed on Berk with them?"

Gobber frowned. "But ye coulda just left 'em at the Nest."

Hiccup turned to face him. "Gobber, I thought you understood."

Gobber put up his hook and started twisting it idly. "I understand that dragons were bein' forced to attack us. I understand ya tamed one and took out tha big one. But everythin' else is just too crazy. I was helpin' ya in the hopes you'd come back. Come back and take your rightful place."

Hiccup shook his head in frustration. "Too crazy. So this is all in my head, apparently? Do you think I'm imagining the rest?"

Gobber took a step back. "Well, when ya put it like tha'... kinda?"

Camicazi nodded in agreement, though nobody noticed. She was still lingering in a shadow, trying to piece together something that made sense out of all of this.

"It always comes down to some sort of proof. Fine." Hiccup pulled out a spare piece of cloth from a bag on the dragon's back and tied it around his head, entirely obscuring his eyes. "Well, you wanted proof. Do something."

Gobber took a step forward. "Maour..."

"No. Hold up some of your fingers and don't tell me which ones. If I have to resort to proving it like this, I will." Hiccup was angry now. "My word isn't good enough, it seems."

Hiccup wanted Gobber to do something… to prove something. This could be a trick. The fact that he specified what he wanted Gobber to do was suspicious. She needed to break the rules to really test him.

Gobber hesitantly held up two fingers.

"Two. Thumb and pointer finger. And Camicazi is picking your pocket. Again. She's already cleaned out the others."

Gobber spun around, catching Camicazi in the act. "'Ey, give my stuff back!" Then he realized what Hiccup had just done. "Wait, 'ow did you-"

Hiccup cut him off. "He told me. If I wanted, I could have accessed his sight and watched you myself, but either way works." His voice was still angry. "I'm not 'imagining' any of it."

Things were becoming clear… crazy, but clear. There were still a few loose threads. Camicazi pulled out the folded parchment from earlier and started unfolding it. Nostalgia, Gobber had said.

Hiccup laughed when Camicazi's eyebrows narrowed, and she stared at the image. "Gobber, you really carry that around with you?"

Gobber was stuck between annoyance and embarrassment. "Well, I didn't exactly have much else, did I? I needed some way ta remember ya, and Fishlegs stole all the recent stuff."

Camicazi spoke up. "What in the world have you been doing?" The drawing depicted Hiccup happily standing with four dragons, somehow both treasonous and peaceful, a contradiction she wasn't sure was possible.

Hiccup groaned. "That will take days to explain. Here are the highlights. Everything you know is wrong, dragons are people, I ended the raids, and left Berk behind. That would be my family now." Then he nodded in response to something no one else heard. "True." He turned to Gobber. "Let's get down to business, shall we?"

Gobber snorted. "Business, 'e says. Fine. I still don't know where Astrid's headin'. But I know when she's leaving. When she gets back from the meetin' o' chiefs in about two weeks. She leaves for that tomorrow, actually."

Maour frowned. "Can you try and find out tomorrow before she goes?"

"I don't think so. I've wrangled my way into goin' with them. That way I know what happens there."

"How did you manage that?"

Gobber took a step forward, gesturing dramatically, acting out the personas he was describing. "You give me too little credit. I've been gainin' 'er trust for years now. She thinks I'm a sad old man with a drinking problem, who can help with all the little details." He grinned. "I always act a little drunk in public. Makes me easy to ignore, and no one suspects the perpetual drunk o' anything more."

Camicazi laughed at that. "Quite impressive, as I said." She was still staring at the picture. "Hiccup, who are the others here? You said the one here is your brother." She looked up. "Is there something I should know about your family history? Some disgraced grandfather down the line somewhere?"

The dragon reared back in shock, and Hiccup stared at her for a moment. "Uh, no. Brother by adoption. Those would be my sister, and adoptive mother and father. Von, Cloey, and Shadow." He shook his head. "Like I said, way too long a story for now. And the name is Maour."

Camicazi crossed her arms. "Not good enough. I want to know what in Thor's name happened around here."

Hiccup shook his head. "Later." He seemed to consider something. "Actually, why are you even here? Not that I mind, but..."

Gobber answered. "I broke 'er out of the jail. Apparently, Astrid decided an heir as a prisoner would be a nice bargaining chip."

Hiccup nodded. "And you figured I'd be a good escape route. Fair enough. Just one problem. That would involve Camicazi riding Toothless." He smirked at Camicazi. "She might be too scared of him to do that."

Camicazi folded the parchment and handed it to Gobber. "Says who?"

"Prove me wrong." There was a challenge in his voice, one she couldn't ignore. Along with another challenge of her own devising.

Camicazi hesitated, and then took a step forward. Then another, slightly larger step. She stopped when the dragon made a strange rumbling sound, almost like coughing. "What's it doing?"

"Laughing at you. He thinks it's funny how you tried to pick my pockets as you walked past me. Luckily for me, this flight suit doesn't have pockets."

"I'd say old habits die hard, but that would be a lie." She took another step forward. "What should I do?" She was almost within touching distance.

"Maybe scratch his nose or something?"

If Hiccup could do it...

Camicazi very cautiously took a final step forward, and carefully touched the dragon on the nose. Nothing happened. She started scratching him, and he began to purr. "Ha! Proved you wrong!"

"Sure. By the way, next, you have to jump off of his back at above cloud level. Then I'll believe you." He took in Camicazi's terrified expression. "I'm kidding."

Camicazi sighed shakily. "Good. No one would be crazy enough-"

Hiccup cut her off. "It's pretty fun though. Jumping off, and free-falling. I do it all the time."

Gobber spoke up. "Eh... since when are ye a daredevil, Maour?"

"Since I discovered flying was the greatest thing ever."

Camicazi took a step away from him. "You're crazy." The Hiccup she knew would never do anything like that voluntarily. Maybe if she pushed him, but not on his own.

"Nope. Astrid is," he countered. "She really is. Kind of like Dagur. It's subtle, but you can see it."

Gobber frowned. "Aye, about that. It's become quite a bit less well hidden lately. Still not obvious though. Ever since Dagur visited a few weeks ago, actually. The two talked for hours. They really hit it off."

Well, that was extremely worrying. Dagur was hard enough to deal with alone, and Camicazi was still getting used to thinking of Berk as an enemy. "Really..."

"Yup. And of course, you know she killed Stoick." Gobber moved towards Hiccup. "I'm sorry lad. We will get revenge for that, don't you worry."

"No. Revenge is a pointless cycle. I won't stoop to her level." He sounded sure of that decision.

"Wha'?" Gobber sounded aghast. "She killed yer father, and ye don't want to make her pay for it?"

"She killed Stoick the Vast, a man who wanted me dead. I don't appreciate it, and wouldn't have condoned it, but I definitely don't feel a burning need to avenge him." Hiccup seemed to waver, before continuing. "Shadow is more of a father to me than Stoick really ever was."

Okay, this was too much. But Camicazi didn't say anything yet. She wanted to see how Hiccup would handle Gobber. Once they were alone she could pry the truth out of him.

Gobber's face fell. "Fine then. Don't care. He was still my friend."

Hiccup nodded. "And I respect that. But I have other priorities. Astrid might need to be dealt with, but it won't be done for revenge."

Gobber abruptly looked out of the cave, at the slowly descending moon. "I need ta get back. What now?" His voice was soft, and he sounded depressed.

"Leave Camicazi here. I'll take her where she needs to go."

Gobber nodded, and departed, taking the torch with him. The cave returned to near pitch-black, leaving Maour and Toothless once again as silhouettes.

Camicazi considered them. "You've changed." That was the understatement of the century, and she wanted answers now. Real answers, not half-truth hints and references.

"Yes, I have. For the better. Gobber just can't accept that I would be done with Berk if only they'd leave me alone." He shifted, sitting closer to the dragon. "I would try to forget everything before I met Toothless if I could, but Astrid and now Dagur aren't letting me do that."

"You'd forget me if you could? I feel like I should take offense," she complained, a little shaken by his certainty.

"No, there are a few things I wouldn't want to forget. My only real friend from before is one of them."

Camicazi sighed. "What's Dagur doing? And Astrid, for that matter." Maybe coming at it from present issues would be a better way to wheedle the information out of him.

"If I told you that, it would tell you things that need to be kept secret. Suffice to say I have a home, and its safety relies on it being kept secret. Dagur and Astrid, in their own ways, are unintentionally or intentionally threatening that secrecy. We live anonymously. But thanks to them, it's getting harder and harder to stay hidden."

"So just leave. You can fly away." She wanted him to keep talking… and her own words made her want to do just that. Flight… He could just fly away. She wanted to fly.

"We can't leave. Some of us wouldn't survive the trip."

Camicazi considered that. "Then stop hiding."

"We can't. It would start a war."

"Then start the war, and win it. Get allies and take out your enemies. Eventually, you'd be safe because there'd be no one who wanted to attack you left." Seriously, the Hiccup she knew would know all of this. It was simple enough.

Hiccup sighed. "And so it comes back to killing. Always with the violence."

"Yet you hang around with a dragon," she countered. "Seriously, the Hiccup I know wouldn't do that." He'd be too terrified. "What happened to you?"  
"You already asked that," Hiccup objected. "I changed. People change. Sometimes it's good, and sometimes it's bad. My changes were good, and I'd not go back to who I was if given the chance." The dragon's silhouette leaned in towards him, bumping him approvingly.

"Well I'm not sure I like new Hiccup," she complained. "He threw away his tribe and his own father for nothing that I can see."

She got the distinct sense he was glaring at her. Not being able to see more than a silhouette was maddeningly useless.

"And can we go somewhere I can actually see you?" She crossed her arms in turn. "Or does new Hiccup like not being seen?"

Hiccup laughed at that. "Sure, if you can stand being on Toothless for half a minute."

If he could do it, she could, and that meant she could try out flying! "No problem."

The dragon moved, approaching her in the dark. She fingered the cudgel Gobber had given her earlier that night, but did nothing. It would be pointless to attack, especially when the possibility of getting to ride it was on the table. Dragons didn't really bother her tribe because of how far they were from the foggy maze that hid the nest, so she wasn't so set against them anyway. As she saw it, they were fellow thieves.

She nimbly leaped onto its back-

And slid right off the other side. It was deceptively thin.

"Maybe try riding the saddle and not his tail," Hiccup commented. She was sure he was smirking right now.

She managed to find the leather portion of the dragon and hopped on. Hiccup moved over and got on in front of her, a movement followed by a distinct set of metal clicks she had not triggered in her own mounting. "What was that?"  
"You'll see." With that, the dragon lurched into motion, sprinting towards the exit, leaping straight out of the circular tunnel and into the moonlight, falling above the waves-

The water was so far away; her heart dropped into her stomach, and she felt like she was falling and floating at the same time. That one moment stretched, both terrifying and exhilarating.

Then they were straightening out, gliding around to face a stubby little sea stack less than a hundred yards away. Surely they weren't-

Nope, they were landing. She didn't get off. "You promised me a ride, not two seconds in the air." She loved thrills, and that single moment promised that flying was going to provide plenty of them.

Hiccup stared at her. "I didn't promise you anything. I said we could go somewhere you could see me."

"I can see you," she agreed. "Come on, I want to know what it's like up there." She pointed straight up. "You can't just hint at it and then not show me."

"Yes, I can. Were you always this pushy?" He looked genuinely unsure.

"Were you always this stubborn?" she retorted. "And I'm still mad at you. You're abandoning your own tribe!"

His face grew cold. "First, they're not my tribe. Second, my own father tried to outcast me. The only reason I'm not technically an Outcast is because I threw myself out first. Third, I don't care. Berk can burn or rot. They had a chance to improve, but they don't like change. Neither do you."

She flinched at that, because it felt like a condemnation. "I'm starting to not like you, either."

"Get used to it, if you're going to keep harping on Berk." He shrugged. "And I don't exactly feel the need to appease you, either. You could still be a friend, or you could be just another hostile Viking. I've got plenty of both already. I'd rather still have you as a friend, but it's your choice."

"I guess Maour suits you," she muttered angrily, "given Hiccup is nowhere to be found."

"What, exactly, am I missing?" he asked. "I'm curious."

She… hadn't expected to be asked to put it into words. "You know, Hiccup! The kid who built things and never gave up and made crazy plans that would always go wrong in the best ways! The kid who actually cared about his people and wanted to prove himself! That guy."

She glared at him. "All I see is someone who discovered how to tame a dragon but ran away from his problems.'"

The dragon snarled at her, but Hic- no, Maour, the jerk that he was now- put his hand on its snout and it stopped.

Maour looked down at the dragon, then up at her. "The things you liked are still there." His voice was calm and quiet. "I still make things. Better things, things that actually work. Toothless's tail is a great example."

At that, the dragon pulled its tail into view, revealing an intricate prosthetic. Those clicks she had heard…

"And I still make plans that sometimes go wrong," he admitted. "Most of them go right nowadays, but still. I ended up fighting Dagur just a few days ago because a plan didn't turn out how I'd hoped."

She was not convinced. "And the rest?"

"My loyalty and need to be accepted didn't go away," he explained. "They just shifted to people who actually cared."

"Dragons," she deadpanned.

"My family and friends," he corrected. "The people who actually care about me, who accept me as I am. I gave two people a chance to accept or reject me. Stoick rejected, and Toothless accepted. Is it any wonder I picked the one who actually wanted me around?"

"You keep saying he rejected you," she objected. "You just didn't-"

"What?" Maour glared angrily at her. "I didn't try hard enough? I tried for years! People like Shadow and Cloey and Toothless and Von didn't make me prove myself. They didn't have some preformed idea of who I should be, they just learned who I _was _and decided that was good!"

Four names, four she recalled from that large parchment filched from Gobber, names Maour had said earlier. The ones he had portrayed himself as seeming so happy with.

"And what of the things I really did give up?" he asked, calming down, his hand still on the dragon. "I'm not desperate to prove myself anymore. I don't have to deal with a society that hates me. I don't have to worry about becoming chief someday, and dealing with a tribe that won't listen to me. No pressure of any kind." He laughed, sincerely amused. "I don't even have to deal with the possibility of my father arranging a marriage for me out of the blue one day, and I seem to recall you mocking that possibility in years past."

Camicazi frowned. When he put it that way… "Only because it's a stupid custom my tribe doesn't follow," she countered.

"And what of the stupid customs they all follow?" Maour asked. "Mocking the weak, pushing heirs to be perfect copies of their parents… I remember you resenting that, too. I got away from _all_ of the customs Vikings hold to, and believe me when I say what I have now both makes more sense and works far better."

"And what do you have now?" she asked, genuinely intrigued. He was making some good points.

"Sorry, but I can't say." He shrugged apologetically. "We live in secret, and I've got some very specific rules about what can and cannot be said."

"Yeah, they sure trust you," she remarked sarcastically.

"I _asked _for those rules," he corrected. "I wanted to be sure I wouldn't let them down. I will not be the one to ruin the best thing I've ever had."

He spoke with such sincerity. "Fine. I believe you're happy now, but you can't just throw away your past like this. Berk is still where you came from."

"Is it?" Maour gestured to the island behind her. "The place I came from wouldn't have locked you in a cell. The place I came from also wasn't hunting and killing dragons for fun. They fought to live. Berk stopped being the place I came from when I ended the war and nothing changed. Astrid and Snotlout taking over just made it obvious. And before you say they're the same people, everyone who wanted to change has already left. I really don't care about the rest. They choose to stay. Gobber is proof even the most hardened, bitter dragon-killer _can _change if they want to."

"Fine." If there was one thing he hadn't lost, it was his persuasiveness when one actually listened. He was right. From his perspective. "But the rest of us have to deal with the mess you left behind."

"You think I'm not dealing with it? Astrid is obsessed with me, and she's not going to stop looking. I don't want to kill her, and that just makes it that much harder. I still don't know which direction her big nest hunt is going, and there's a chance she'll head right for us."

"Even if she misses you, won't she just keep trying?" That seemed obvious. "If she really is aiming for you."

"She wants to kill Night Furies," Maour explained, nodding significantly to the dragon he had been so friendly with this entire time. "And me. I'd say yes, we're her target."

That was a Night Fury. By the picture, they all were. Hiccup had been taken in by a family of Night Furies. Yes, his tendancy for crazy plans was still very much present, and it must have paid off big time.

And if she could get on his good side, she could ride a Night Fury.

With that, another piece of the puzzle slid into place. "You're the dragon rider drunk travellers talk about." A dark, terrifying shadow that was never really seen, with the silhouette of a rider. It made sense.

He nodded and gestured to his black scale armor, and then to the helmet hanging from the saddle. "Yup. But I'm the less intimidating half of that rumor."

She looked to the dragon, which was purring smugly. "Also, there's that. You proved to Gobber..?"

"He talks, they all talk," Maour explained matter-of-factly, as if he wasn't shattering her view of reality. "Getting to hear them is difficult, and it can't be learned like other languages, but they all do. And more, with the dragon who helps you understand. That was what I was proving."

She was going to have to find out more about that. Forget considering dragons fellow thieves, with the right setup she could have one as an accomplice. "How do I hear them?"

"You don't." He sounded serious. "First, you'd need to find the right dragon, and I haven't met one that would fit you."

"Well that stinks. What dragon do I need to find?" She might as well know.

"A Night Fury with a personality similar to your own." Maour absently scratched Toothless's head. "Very similar, though not identical. It's not impossible; I've seen it happen."

"Once." That wasn't fair at all.

"More than once," he revealed. "And more than that I cannot say."

Well, if that was how it worked, it wasn't like she could argue it. "But I can ride this one."

"Toothless, and maybe if we let you."

"You need to take me to my tribe. How did you plan on doing that without me riding?" She hadn't actually fully thought about how much time in the air she'd be getting no matter what. Maybe there hadn't been any need to push Maour earlier about taking a joyride.

"You could hang from his paws," Maour joked. "But yeah, you'll get a few days of riding in any case. I'm going to take you out of Astrid's clutches whether or not you're still a friend."

And they were back to that question. She considered it. He was different, but not so different as she had first thought. She could live with that. "Still friends, Hiccup."

"Maour," he corrected. "Seriously. I don't go by Hiccup with anyone."

"Svarty," she offered as a compromise.

"Maour."

"Svarty."

"Svarty isn't a good name," he complained. "Toothless's name is Svarturkappi, and the rest of my family also have Svartur as part of their name. Svarty could refer to any of us."

"Sure, sure," she agreed, now thinking of other names. "I'll come up with something else."

"Maour," he groaned.

"I've got a week, I can do better." It would take that long to get to… "Oh, and I don't want you to take me home. My mother is already at the meeting place, and she needs to know I'm not in Berk's clutches before she signs away anything to try and get me back."

"How far away is this meeting place?" He sounded confused.

"About a week by boat." She pointed in the general direction. "So yeah, that long. If we leave right now, we can get there before Astrid."

"Oh, right. I forgot to tell you. I'm usually nocturnal now, and I can go way longer without sleep. So, we should actually travel at night. We can leave tomorrow night."

Camicazi stared at him. "That's just weird. Besides, we need to be fast."

Maour pulled out his map and located the meeting island. He plotted a course from where they were to there. "We can spare a day. It's only three days by dragon."

Camicazi bolted upright. "Three days?!"

Maour misinterpreted her objection. "It would be way faster, but we're forced to island hop everywhere. So we can't go straight there. I think it would be less than two if we could."

"That's just ridiculous. Do you even realize how much of my life has been wasted sailing everywhere? You say three days like it's an eternity. Anyway, apparently, we can afford to wait until night. What will we do all day?"

Toothless warbled happily. Maour looked at him. "No. We are going to sleep, not terrorize her." He turned to address Camicazi. "He wanted to make sure you can handle flying with him. Stuff like dives, spins, flying upside-down. But I'm afraid you're going to be pretty bored. We'll be sleeping all day." He sat up and got back onto Toothless. "Which reminds me, we should get you some food before then."

_She _could think of no better way to spend a day than a thrill ride on a Night Fury, personally, but they were gone before she could object. She'd get that promised ride at some point.

Camicazi watched as the man and dragon circled the water around the sea stack, and blasted the water. She smiled at the pile of fish Maour and Toothless brought back. "How much do you think I eat?" There was enough there for a week's worth of food.

Maour grinned. "Most of this is for Toothless. One's mine and the others are yours. Also, Toothless says he'll drag you upside-down through the ocean if you mess with his saddlebags."

"No he didn't," she asserted, planning on doing exactly that as soon as he was asleep.

Maour didn't say anything, instead pointing at Toothless…

Who was very deliberately gripping a fish in one of his front paws. Once he was sure Camicazi was looking, he picked the fish up by its tail and dragged it along the rock, very obviously demonstrating.

Okay, maybe that wasn't a good idea. "Fine."

Toothless flash-cooked six or so fish, and set them aside. Then he devoured the rest. He and Maour settled down for the... morning, it was now. Time really did fly sometimes.

Camicazi grimaced as she realized she was basically alone on some random sea stack for a full day, with some cooked fish, water Maour had gotten out of the saddle, and pretty much nothing else. And a sleeping dragon who had promised horrible consequences for digging through his stuff. It was going to be a very boring day.


	17. Chapter 17

Flying, Camicazi decided, was not as fun as she had hoped. Not the way Maour and Toothless did it, anyway, gliding straight and level for hours on end. She was still hungry for the experience of real flight, spinning and diving and who knew what else, but she figured that Maour and Toothless would find a way to make that boring, too. And then there was the problem Maour was so nonchalantly waving off as nothing...

"It will go away eventually," Maour asserted, failing to hide his amusement. Toothless didn't even bother trying, rumbling with laughter.

"Laugh now," she threatened, waddling over to the stream they had chosen to land by. "I will get the both of you for this." Maour had never told her just how badly sore she would be after a whole night in the air. Three nights of flying later, and she was sure she would never get used to being saddle-sore. Maybe it was a good thing that there were no horses to ride in an archipelago. At least ships were comfortable!

She leaned over, splashing her face with water, and drinking her fill. The wind up there made travel less than comfortable, even if one did sleep through most of it, as she had, and her face felt dry and painfully cold.

The results of sleeping through the flight were still better than the alternative, though. Maour could muck around with being nocturnal; she might even have liked that idea if she didn't have to represent her tribe once they got to where they were going. A tired, lackluster heir was no good. She needed to be in top form to repeatedly rob each and every other heir present.

Speaking of top form, or lack thereof… "Do you really have to sleep all day?" she asked pointedly. "I get that he does," she admitted, pointing at Toothless, "but surely you don't. All you do it sit on him and stare into the distance for hours on end."

Maour shrugged. "I don't, but I'd rather not be tired when we drop you off. Toothless and I will make better time if we head straight back out. We're not stopping where we drop you off."

Camicazi let that go. "Fine, another boring day to myself." She did not enjoy being stranded on some desolate sandbar from dawn until dusk. The wilderness was boring; people were what interested her. But she had no choice. That was just how these two traveled, and she was a passenger.

"I'm sure you'll find something to do," Maour asserted, following Toothless down to a small beach. The two of them began to settle down on a flat part of the sand, well above where the tide would reach. "Keep watch?"  
"Of course." She might be bored, but she wasn't stupid. She'd see any ship coming from hours away.

Maour might be just the tiniest bit stupid to _trust _her to keep watch, but she was just glad he still retained a little optimism. Besides, she wasn't going to sell him out. Even if the Night Fury would net her quite the bounty, sold to the right people. It was better to take from people, not to be paid.

Well, that and Maour was her friend, so she didn't want to betray him. But the first reason was one she could cite if asked by someone later. More fun to steal what she might have otherwise been paid.

None of that alleviated her boredom now, though. She wandered the small island, resenting every individual blade of grass for not being more interesting. There was nothing to steal, nobody to trick, and nothing to do or look at. She did not do sitting still and thinking. This was not fun.

Whatever, she was getting back to her people. That was important enough to justify the boredom. And she _did _need to think, to plan. Time was growing short.

Her deadline was sleeping in the sand on the beach, a black dot that almost absorbed sunlight. Maour and Toothless did not intend to stay any longer than needed to drop her off. She would wave goodbye, possibly forever, tomorrow morning, at the pace they traveled.

That was not acceptable. She liked Maour, and she was beginning to find Toothless funny, even if he was somehow too serious for her, despite not being able to say anything directly. She at least wanted to have a way to find them again.

That could probably be solved if she just told Maour what she wanted. He'd come up with some cryptic way to get in contact, and that would be it. But that wasn't fun, and she never went for the easy answer.

No, she wanted to keep him on the meeting island. He needed to crush his enemies, however reluctant he was to agree to that, and to do that he'd need allies. The meeting of chieftains was the best possible place to get those. And he planned on just leaving without trying!

It also helped that his enemies were her tribe's enemies, now. Well, Berk was definitely no longer an ally, anyway, and the Berserkers had been making ominous offers of 'friendship' that amounted to demands for surrender. She was pretty sure she could get her mother into this fairly easily.

All of this hinged on a few uncertainties. She was not used to planning for those, preferring to handle them in the moment, but she had nothing but time, so what else was there to do?

She cast Maour and Toothless a glance, and her eyes caught the sand all around them. She had a whole day…

She could work and think. It would not be hard to do both.

* * *

Maour did not notice anything was wrong at first. He yawned, stretching and lightly pushing Toothless's wing away. It was dusk; he woke at the same time every evening. His body was on a schedule, the schedule of flying all night and sleeping all day, with little in between besides eating and drinking. Having Camicazi as a passenger these last few nights had not changed much, either. She slept all night, somehow managing to nod off, leaning against his back.

That was fine. He was just glad she was getting along with Toothless, and holding back the urge to rifle through Toothless's saddlebags. She had learned restraint, at some point in the last six years.

Then he opened his eyes, wondering if Camicazi was around, and saw something he did not expect.

"Toothless," he said loudly. "Did you have a strange dream?"

Toothless huffed, his eyes slowly opening, as if he was reluctant to give up sleep. 'What? No.'

"You're sure? No dreams of digging, or anything like that?"

'Why?'

Maour shrugged, sitting up. "Because I don't remember going to sleep in a hole, and yet here we are." He was pretty sure Camicazi was somehow behind the fact that sand was all around him, up past his head in height, but how had she managed to move them without waking them up?

'In a hole,' Toothless repeated, looking around with wide eyes. 'But… I know I have not moved.'

"I didn't think so either," Maour agreed, listening carefully. If this was Camicazi's work, she was stifling her laughter well. Then again, she could only hear half the conversation, so maybe his reaction was not as funny as it could have been. He was genuinely curious as to how she had done it, though, so he stood, his head passing above the-

"Oh." He could not help but feel impressed. "We didn't move, _someone _just piled massive mounds of sand up all around us." Now he knew how Camicazi had spent her day.

'Is she insane?' Toothless asked seriously. 'I cannot smell it, but this is not the work of someone normal.'

"What does Toothless think?" Camicazi asked, jumping up from behind a nearby sand dune, smiling widely.

"He thinks you're unique," Maour said, twisted his brother's words.

Toothless shrugged, pushing through the nearest wall of sand and walking out. 'In a way.'

"That I am," Camicazi happily agreed. "Anyway, this is the last night of flying, right?"

"I'll wake you when we get there," Maour confirmed, "so that we can drop you off."

"Hey, you'll have to at least say hello to my mother," Camicazi objected, speaking as if he should have known that. "I need proof I'm not crazy when I explain how I made it to the meeting island before my own ship."

Maour had no intention to linger on an island Astrid and other Vikings from all over the archipelago would be meeting at… but he saw her point. "Fine. A quick greeting, and then we're off."

'Yes. We need to make it back as soon as possible,' Toothless agreed. 'The eggs probably will not hatch for a few more weeks or even months, but we should not waste time.'

The eggs… Maour had not forgotten about them, but hearing Toothless speak of them reminded him of that entire situation. "Agreed."

"What? Come on, you know I hate being left out of the loop," Camicazi complained.

"He was saying we should not waste time," Maour hedged. "Come on, let's go."

* * *

One night of flying later, and Toothless reached the meeting island. Or, he and Maour assumed it was the meeting island.

The island in question was a somewhat small, circular lump of sand and grass, a large hill rising almost like a wannabe volcano or mountain, only steep enough to be a difficult walk. What made it look like a meeting island was the firepit and ring of log seats at the hill's summit, and the three large ships anchored just off the shore.

Maour stuck a hand back and lightly shook Camicazi, knowing she was a light sleeper- and a dangerous one. It was a good thing she had lost her knives. Being stabbed in the back by a startled Bog-Burglar would be a very embarrassing way to die.

"Yes, this is it," Camicazi announced almost immediately after being shaken. "Mom's ship is the big one."

'They're all big,' Toothless noted.

"The one with the Bog-Burglar crest," Maour added, pointing to the ship anchored alone. He was just glad Toothless probably wouldn't ask-

'What is that crest? I do not understand it,' Toothless asked innocently, gliding down towards the ship. He circled it from above, well aware that they would not be seen until the sun had fully risen, if then.

Maour groaned. "I do not want to explain that." The Bog Burglars seemed to revel in embarrassing even the roughest men from other tribes, and their tribal crest reflected that.

"The crest?" Camicazi asked brightly. "I can explain! The hand represents our expertise at theft, and the knife how dangerous we are!"

'And the worm?' Toothless inquired. 'Maour, can you ask for me?'

"He wants to know about what the knife is stabbing," Maour groaned.

"Oh, _that?_" Camicazi asked slyly. "Just a warning. I think we should ditch the symbolism, but mom says it's more fun explaining it to anyone who asks."

Maour was just glad it really was a worm on the crest, as opposed to what Camicazi wanted it to be. A tribe that was predominantly women, with all women leadership and warriors, might have something to prove, but even as it was their crest made him cringe, let alone some of the other things they did.

'Strange. Do Vikings have a feud with worms, too?' Toothless asked innocently. "They seem harmless enough to me."

"Now I know you get it and are just trying to embarrass me," Maour revealed. 'Don't act like you don't get symbolism all of a sudden."

'It was worth a shot,' Toothless said happily. 'So, drop Camicazi on this ship and get back into the sky?'

"We have to at least say hello to her mother," Maour reminded him. "But I'd like to do that without being screamed at or shot at."

"Drop me, and come back around in two minutes," Camicazi suggested confidently. "That's all the time I need. But you had better come back."

"Or what?" Maour asked, even as Toothless swooped in for the drop off. Camicazi would just slide out of the saddle and land on deck at the bottom of the dive. Toothless was good enough to slow down at the lowest point so that Camicazi wouldn't be moving too fast.

"Or I keep whatever this is!" Camicazi called out, waving a metal rod and dropping from the saddle.

Toothless powered up, moving away from the ship to continue circling the island. 'Did she steal from our saddlebags?' he asked indignantly.

"Yes, but all she got was one of the replacement rods. Specifically, one of the ten we brought." Maour grinned. "She can keep that, for all I care, but I'd rather not be on her bad side if we ever run into her in the future, so we should go down and keep our promise anyway."

'As if you would ever break your word,' Toothless asserted. 'Though dropping into a hostile ship does feel a little risky. Maybe we should give her a little more time.'

"Fine by me." That might also make Camicazi wonder if they were coming back, which was an added bonus. Maour liked being around her, but she was definitely more pushy now than the last time he had seen her… or maybe he just had a spine to push back with, now. Either way, he found himself pushing back far more often than he remembered being necessary.

As for it being risky… "I would almost be more worried about Camicazi pulling some trick on us," he admitted. "Like capturing us for fun… and then deciding not to let us go." He trusted her to not intentionally betray them, but Camicazi's chaotic ways meant that trust did not extend as far as it would with anyone else.

'As long as we are careful,' Toothless concluded. 'Also, who are these other ships? I like their crest far better.'

"I… don't know, actually." Maour knew plenty of tribal crests, though his memory of them was extremely dull from disuse, for obvious reasons, but two shields and what looked like barley or some other type of crop was definitely not one he had heard of. "It doesn't really matter to us, though. We're leaving."

'To home, to the eggs and helping our parents," Toothless crowed. "I cannot wait.'

"You're certainly enthusiastic," Maour remarked. "Again, we have plenty of time to spare."

'I know, but something inside me says we need to be there, now,' Toothless admitted. 'It is probably instinct.'

"Well, I don't have that same instinct, but I still agree with the sentiment." He would agree more if he knew where Astrid was going, but there was no good way to find out now. She would be sailing here, staying for a week or so, and then sailing back to Berk, all before setting out on her nest hunt. Waiting for almost a month was not an appealing option.

Maour harbored some half-formed plans of going back out or sending someone else, just to be sure Astrid was not heading directly South, and thus towards them, but he had not solidified those plans yet. In any case, given the relative travel times, they could go home and someone else could fly out here, all before Astrid actually left on her nest hunt. Travel times were annoyingly complex when comparing dragon to ship, but at least Maour had the dragon side of things to work with. It certainly opened up a lot of options.

Toothless huffed and turned once more, heading back to the Bog Burglar ship. 'That should be long enough.'

Maour took his helmet off, hanging it on the saddle. Best to not look intimidating, if at all possible. Given who he was riding, that was mostly out of his control, but at least anyone on deck would be able to see his face.

'Two humans visible on deck,' Toothless reported as they swooped in.

Maour could see them too. One was clearly Camicazi, and the other had to be her mother, a large and imposing figure. "The other one's her mom. Think Camicazi, but much bigger and much louder." He was just glad no other crew was around. They must have all been sent below deck.

Toothless dropped onto the deck of the ship almost perfectly silently, only a slight whoosh of displaced air announcing his presence. He growled lightly as a way to get the attention of the two women with their backs to him.

Both whirled almost as one, the larger pulling out an almost comically oversized sword. "Sneakin' up on us?"

"Landing in the best spot," Maour corrected idly, knowing that he wanted to keep things light and, if possible, friendly. "Long time no see, Chief Bertha."

"What, not going to use mom's full title?" Camicazi asked with a smirk.

"No," Maour replied with a straight face. "That's just to embarrass other Chiefs. The rest of us don't have to use it."  
"You're not wrong," Bertha agreed. Her voice was deeper than her daughter's, but smoother and more melodious, belying her large and decidedly rough appearance. "Camicazi tells me you brought her out of Berk's grasp?" A careful question that skirted the literal dragon on deck.

"A favor done for a friend," Maour explained. "How much else has she told you?" He did not want to stay long, but he would also not let Bertha harbor any major misconceptions. That could be more dangerous than her sword, in the long run, if she acted on inaccurate ideas.

"Let me see… You hang around with dragons, you have no interest in Berk except as a potential enemy, you're no friend of the Berserkers, and you need allies," Bertha summarized. "Along with telling me that we're no longer friends with Berk, and that we need allies to replace them."

Maour stared at Camicazi, understanding what she had done. "I think your daughter is trying to tell us something," he remarked.

"Clearly," Bertha agreed. "And given the Berserkers have been making noises about conquering recently, it looks like we have all of our enemies in common. She may not be wrong."  
"Talk about me like I'm not here and I'll keep this," Camicazi threatened, waving the rod she had stolen. "And yes, we should be allies. It's obvious!"

"Explain," Bertha requested, eyeing Maour. "There is the obvious downside of working with dragons to be considered."  
"We're Bog Burglars; we take any friends we can get," Camicazi scoffed, dismissing that as if it was nothing. "Especially friends as disreputable as us. We're seen as second class by the rest of the archipelago, and so is he." She pointed to Maour or Toothless; it wasn't quite clear which she meant. "Same enemies, so any strike on them benefits us both. And advantages no other tribe in the archipelago can get. We flew here from Berk in three days, mother."

"You make good points," Bertha mused. "And given the dragon has yet to kill anyone, I'd say it can be worked with well enough." She looked to Maour. "How much?"  
"For what?" Maour was slowly liking the idea of being allied with an actual tribe, but there were far too many complications to be worked out, and he had no actual authority to speak for his people.

"For the dragon," Bertha clarified. "And lessons for one or more of my warriors on how to use it."

'More than anyone in this world can pay,' Toothless snarled, taking a step back.

Maour put a hand on his brother's head, reassuring him with his words at the same time. "He is not mine to sell, and I could put no price to him anyway. You misunderstand; there is no control here."

"Yeah, that's not really how it works," Camicazi agreed, favoring Maour with an apologetic smile. "Besides, Toothless is a boy. We only have women warriors."

"I'd be willing to overlook that in order to have a tamed Night Fury," Bertha grumbled. "So how exactly does it work, then?"  
So much for a quick hello before leaving. Maour met Bertha's gaze and did his best to look as serious as possible. "They are people. We work together because both of us want to."

Bertha snorted. "Change your name and look, but you can't change who you are. Still with the crazy ideas that blow up in your face."

"This one didn't," Maour retorted. "Just know that Toothless is not separated from me except by force, and if you manage that, you'll have far bigger problems than Berk or the Berserkers."

"Fine, then. I still want a part of this," Bertha admitted, gesturing to Toothless. "Camicazi is right, we can't afford to be picky, and picky was never my style to begin with. I just take whatever I can find. So what can you offer my tribe?"

"What can you offer mine?" Maour asked skeptically, inwardly enthusiastic but hiding it. Bertha, because of her tribe's circumstances and ideals, had taken to dragons in less than ten minutes. He had never dreamed it could be that easy!

"An ally against Berkians and Berserkers," Bertha offered. "Just those two, though. I don't want to be against every tribe that will take shots at a Night Fury if given the chance."

"Neither do we," Maour agreed. "Just those two. But alliances go both ways, and I cannot promise much." He would not break his word.

'Maour, we cannot promise much of anything,' Toothless objected. 'But I think you already know what we have to offer.'

"Our own services," Maour whispered, replying to Toothless. 'You up for me promising our help in exchange for theirs if we need it?"

'Better we fight our enemies here with friends than at home, alone,' Toothless reasoned. 'I trust you.'

"What can you promise?" Bertha asked, following up on the last thing Maour had said to her. "What tribe are we talking about, anyway?"

"What tribe?" Now Maour had to think quickly, because to tell Bertha the absolute truth was both against his own promises to preserve secrecy, and sure to shake her willingness to enter into any sort of deal. She still clearly thought he was in charge of Toothless; finding out that humans were a minority, if an equally treated one, would shake her willingness to get involved with them.

'Call us the Isle of Night,' Toothless proposed. 'I like the sound of that.'

Maour nodded thankfully. "We are the Isle of Night," he declared, mentally classifying 'we' as himself and Toothless. He could speak for the both of them. "The location of our home island is secret, and I have sworn not to reveal it without permission."

"And the map he has doesn't list any Isle of Night," Camicazi remarked. "I saw it before we left Berk, and that definitely wasn't on it." She seemed to be willing to watch Maour work without contradicting him, or else she would have called him out on the name she had not heard until just now.

And of course she was content; she had somehow maneuvered him into negotiating a treaty with her tribe. This had to have been her plan all along. Maour couldn't really be mad at her for that; this might actually work out in his favor.

"If we are to be allies, I have to know where it is," Bertha objected. "Generally, allies defend each other if need be."

"Actually, that's all I want our alliance to be," Maour explained. "Mutual defense against either tribe." He did not want to be dragged into a war against Berk if Astrid and Snotlout were somehow deposed tomorrow, but Bertha still wanted vengeance for their actions. He also didn't really want to have to come out here and fight to defend the Bog Burglars from either Astrid or Dagur, but that was a sacrifice he was going to have to make to get the same from Bertha.

"We can do that," Bertha agreed. "Mutual defense isn't much, but it's something. Camicazi, go get us some parchment. I think this is going to work out."

Camicazi quickly disappeared below deck.

"My daughter does not easily trust," Bertha remarked. "If she did not vouch so strongly for you, I would have a Night Fury head in my quarters right now."

"Agree to disagree," Maour remarked. "Betray us, and you _will _regret it."

"Also, since when do you have a backbone?" Bertha asked. "I remember a pliable boy who my daughter led around like a henchman."

"That's who everyone remembers," Maour agreed mildly, not letting his annoyance with that fairly accurate description show. "But they remember Hiccup. I am not him, not in any way you will care about. Best to make that distinction now; it will only trip you up if you do not. I am Svarturflugmaður, or Maour to my friends."

"Standing with a dragon at your back and negotiating with a Chief as if you have any right to do so," Bertha remarked. "I have no difficulty seeing the difference, Svarturflugmaður." She tripped over his name, but she had at least tried.

"Thank you. If only it was that easy with everyone." Really, he would rather not have to explain himself, but if he had to, he would rather it be like this, simple and without argument. "Also, thank you for not asking a thousand questions."

"About why you left your tribe, or why Stoick threw you out, or what in Thor's name you're doing with your life?" Bertha asked wryly. "Camicazi has already asked anything I would think of, with three days to work on you. I expect a full report sooner or later, and she would tell me anything I needed to know to make this deal. She will make a good Chief once I am gone." The implication was obvious.

"And I would not have made a good Chief in any case," Maour remarked casually, not willing to let that subtle poke at his past slide, not when he had a good retort. "I never really wanted the position in the first place. I am far better being myself."

Camicazi burst back onto the deck, carrying a pile of parchment, several small vials, and a few quills, for signing things. She was also visibly armed with a pair of knives.

Bertha saw that almost immediately. "Took a detour to get your best knives, I see." She took the parchment and glared at it, as if it had done her a personal injustice. "I hate writing, but it has to be done."

"I could do it," Camicazi volunteered, setting the vials and quills down on deck.

"You could also add in some 'extra' clauses in the margins that nobody would notice until the ink was dry," Bertha remarked. "Not happening."

"Worth a try," Camicazi remarked. "Also, the crew is getting pretty antsy down there. You might want to let them know what's going on sooner or later."

"Not until this is done and signed," Bertha countered, beginning to write in cramped runes. "It will be easier to explain that way."

Maour tried to read the runes upside-down, but he was too far away to even make them out. He slid off of Toothless, dropping onto the deck, and walked around to stand beside Bertha. If he was going to be agreeing to this, he wanted to be in on making it.

"A standard defensive treaty," Bertha explained as she wrote. "Specifically against Berk and Berserker offensives." Then she stopped. "In the event of an attack, what size force do we pledge? Three ships, or ten?" She looked over at Maour. "You would know what you can promise."

"Maybe not a set number," Maour hedged, an idea occurring almost immediately. "Forces change. Possibly a percentage? Say, one fourth of the Isle of Night's military forces."

"What do you count as a military force?" Bertha asked suspiciously.

"A rider and dragon, or a ship and crew," Maour answered smoothly. "And of course, a fourth, rounded up to the nearest unit." Using math with a Viking was a bad idea, but this was pretty basic, and Maour had noticed that most Vikings were better with numbers if things were put into a practical perspective, like food or in this case soldiers.

"So if you are the only one of your island," Bertha realized, "you will have to come no matter what. But do you count a dragon and rider as one unit, or two? I do not want just you, and not the dragon."  
"I'm going to ignore the insult," Maour quipped. "A dragon and rider is one unit. So is a ship and crew."

"We will also pledge a minimum of one fourth rounded up to the nearest unit," Bertha declared, writing down everything they had agreed upon. "That's not so much, really, but anything is better than nothing. These units, will they be under their ally's command?"

"Yes, with some discretion," Maour agreed. "They can refuse obviously horrible orders, such as being sent on suicide missions."

"Of course; my people are not fodder to be slaughtered in your stead," Bertha huffed. "How long must units sent out to support stay?"

"Until the enemy has given up or been defeated," Maour replied, far more reluctant this time around. "Any time limit will backfire on us, by forcing us to rush and end the enemy before we lose our support."

"Then you should add a provision for switching out equivalent units," Camicazi said, adding her own opinion. "Because some wars can last months, or even years. I'd hate to be stuck on a defensive blockade while everyone at home just lazes around. Let the Chiefs send replacements if they want."  
"Reasonable enough. Maour?"

"Definitely," Maour agreed. If nothing else, he could probably get Heather and maybe Einfari out here, if the Berserkers were involved. Really, he had no idea how all of this was going to go down with the rest of the pack, but as it was, he was not promising anything he and Toothless alone could not provide. At worst, he had just signed them both up for fighting Berk or the Berserkers out here with Bertha. At best, he had just procured a fourth of a tribe in the event of his home being attacked. Totally worth the personal commitment.

"Let's see…" Bertha scrawled a little more. "I am leaving this open. If other tribes want to join in, and we agree, they will be held to the same terms."

"Other tribes..." Maour mused.

'Why do I get the feeling we are not going home once you are done with this?' Toothless groaned.

"Do you think any other tribes would agree to this?" Maour asked hopefully.

"The Berserkers are making pretty general noises about going on the warpath," Bertha reasoned. "Other tribes with no allies will be getting nervous. We're all meeting here in a week or so. This is the perfect time for getting people in on this."

"But obviously, you'd have to be here to convince them, Maour," Camicazi added. "You're not a Chief, but as long as we get the Order-Keeper's permission, the same rules can apply to you."

"I'm not going to stay on this island when other tribes start showing up!" Maour objected, shocked that Camicazi thought he would be stupid enough to do that. "They'll just kill Toothless, and probably me as well."

"When was the last time you came to one of these?" Camicazi asked curiously.

"Well… never, actually." Stoick had not taken him on the last one, and since they were held every five years or so, he was too young to have gone on any of the ones before that.

"That explains a lot. If we get the Order-Keeper to declare you under the island's rules," Camicazi explained, "nobody will dare touch you. There's no killing or fighting here; else we'd never get anything done."

"Anyone who attacks another will be dishonored, punished, and possibly punished again in the afterlife," Bertha added. "That last one's not all that clear, but the gods will not just ignore such a blatant disregard for sacred ground."

'Sacred ground?' Toothless asked, warbling in confusion. 'What does that mean?'

"Sacred ground?" Maour repeated, just as curious.

"Don't ask me, I never paid attention when people talked about it," Bertha admitted. "Something big happened here a long time ago, and ever since then, no violence is permitted against any under the Order-keeper's protection."

"Basically, you can stick your tongue out at Dagur himself, and he'll have to swallow his homicidal rage," Camicazi summarized. "I've done it; even 'the Derangedness' holds to the peace here."

'Maour, can we not just get our entire island declared sacred ground?' Toothless suggested. 'That sounds perfect.'

"I don't think so; it sounds like something huge would have to happen there," Maour replied quietly. In a louder voice, he checked to be sure he was understanding right. "So all we have to do is get one guy's approval, and we can stay here for the whole meeting?"

"The Order-Keeper," Bertha confirmed. "Once we're done with this treaty, I'll send someone to go get him. Best to get that done immediately, even if we do have more than a week before anyone else gets here. His tribe acts as protectors of the peace, and you don't want to run into one of them before getting approval. The peace only applies to people who have it. Anyone else is run off or killed."

"Okay…" Maour turned to Toothless. "Buddy, I know you wanted to get home-"

'We can get more protectors for our island,' Toothless cut in. 'I can wait a few weeks if that is the payoff. We do have some time to spare. The eggs should not hatch for a while yet.'

"Good to hear." Maour turned to Bertha. "We can stay. Is there anything else we need to add to the treaty?"

"Well, not really," Bertha admitted, looking over her handiwork. "Alliance agreement, a pledge to send at least one fourth of our forces rounded up to the nearest unit, units defined as either a ship and crew or a dragon and rider, explanation of duration and authority, provision for replacement, applicable enemies named, defensive initiatives only… all is set." She absently dipped the quill in the small vial of ink Camicazi had provided. "I don't think you'll want to sign in dragon's blood, so ink is good enough." She scrawled a very cramped and dense signature at the bottom of the parchment, and handed the quill to Maour.

Maour considered it, reading it all over one last time. It was basically a personal sacrifice to protect his people. He and Toothless could do that, and it would only be a personal sacrifice if the pack totally refused to back him. If they liked this, which he was pretty sure they would, they would treat the 'Isle of Night' as referring to the whole pack, and act accordingly.

And if not, he was still holding to his word. He signed, writing out his full name as best he could, sounding it out in runes, as for obvious reasons he had never actually seen it written down before. It ended up being quite the long signature, all in all, twice as lengthy as Bertha's.

"Midgard has officially lost its mind," Bertha announced with a deep laugh. "The Bog Burglars are allied with a Night Fury and its rider." She looked to Maour. "And now that we are allies… how many dragons does this 'Isle of Night' really have?"

"I am not yet allowed to say," Maour answered. "More than what you see here." That much was common knowledge; plenty of Berkians had seen Cloey in the arena and at the nest, with Toothless. "And there are more riders than you see here, too." Dagur or Savage had probably seen Heather with Einfari, so that was no secret either.

"I look forward to seeing what else you have up your sleeve," Bertha admitted, waving the parchment in the air to let it dry. "A lot has changed, but you still remind me of a Bog Burglar in one specific way. You don't let what's normal stop you from doing whatever comes to mind."

Maour decided to take that as a compliment. "Thank you." Then he looked to Camicazi, and considered what she had somewhat tricked him into. Staying here, under an apparently sufficient peace to allow him and Toothless safety among Vikings, to stand face to face with Dagur and even Astrid with no fear of physical reprisal. To possibly obtain even more allies, instead of just hoping Astrid would not come their way.

"And thank you, too," he said to Camicazi. Things were not going as he had planned, but there was far more opportunity to be had this way. It was too bad Heather was not here; she might have been able to talk Dagur out of pursuing her, given time and safety from physical reprisal.

_**Author's Note: **_**So, all of that happened. Originally (and I kept the scene, so you'll see it at the end of this story, when I post a selection of deleted scenes) this plot twist wasn't even a twist, Maour and Camicazi coming up with it together. I forced both characters to act OOC to get that, though. At least this way, it's not so strange. (and Maour isn't giving away secrets left, right, and center, something that made me facepalm as I read through the original version of this chapter). Things are getting interesting, now… And we still haven't checked in on the other plotline presumably progressing somewhere else in the world right now. In case anyone is wondering, I'm not going to bounce between the two lines with every other chapter, so we will need to go back in time a little once we move over to Heather's POV, which won't be for another few chapters.**


	18. Chapter 18

Out to the East, the sun was only a hairsbreadth above the horizon, casting yellow rays of light across the deck of the Bog Burglar ship. Toothless stood uncertainly behind Maour, facing Bertha and Camicazi. His sleek form cast a long shadow across the ship.

Maour was feeling as uncertain as Toothless looked. Less than ten minutes ago, they had planned on leaving immediately, on just dropping Camicazi off, saying hello to her mother to prove Camicazi's story, and taking off. Now…

Now, they somehow had a mutual defense treaty with the entire Bog Burglar tribe, one carefully written but no less real, an actual treaty signed and agreed upon. Camicazi was behind that, but Maour did not fully understand how she had managed it. He had gone with it, not daring to question his own luck…

But now, with the ink drying in front of them, he had to ask. Or, in the spirit of _not _risking offending his new ally seconds after it became official, to make a leading statement. "You came to terms with all of… this… rather quickly," he observed, gesturing to himself and Toothless.

"Like I said, we don't really hate dragons," Camicazi answered happily. She was still beaming, probably glad her plan had worked out so well. "So why not?"

"It's more than that," Bertha corrected. "We don't have anything to lose, and everything to gain. Reputation means nothing to us; our whole tribe is seen as inferior by most anyway."

'Why?' Toothless rumbled, trusting Maour to ask for him.

"Toothless wants to know why," Maour conveyed, ignoring the look of disbelief clearly visible on Bertha's face. "I think I have an idea, but I might be wrong."  
"If that idea is that it's because only our women ever leave the island, you'd be right," Bertha grunted. "We do the trading, the leading, and the fighting. No 'real Viking' can stand the thought of that." She huffed scornfully. "The more hard-headed still think there have to be men running things in secret somewhere."  
"Honestly," Maour admitted, "I didn't even know that was how things worked for you. Is there a reason?" He was curious, and it seemed like Bertha was going to give actual answers, instead of just shrugging him off.

"Tradition," Bertha explained. "Camicazi?"

"Yes?" Camicazi looked up from her knives, clearly bored.

"Explain why we are as we are," Bertha requested, the steel in her voice implying she would not accept the wrong answer.

"Four generations back, a band of women thieves was started," Camicazi began, droning on in what had to be the most monotone, boring tone she could think of. "Nobody knows their names, or where they came from. They got infamous, took over a whole island as a base, and women from other tribes flocked to join them. Thus, the Bog Burglars."

"I would have thought you'd like your own history," Maour remarked. Really, why wouldn't Camicazi be enamored with a story about thievery and fame?  
"The past is the past, and it's not like we know more than that," Camicazi explained blandly, twirling one of her knives. "Nobody even knows what they did; that's how good they were. Everything that ever went missing while they were around they apparently stole, to hear the stories now. But we don't have any of the cool stuff they supposedly took, so who cares?"

"It is our history, however 'boring,' and I am just glad you know the basics," Bertha admitted. Then she turned to Maour. "A new tribe, one that does things strangely and differently. We need allies because we don't do open war unless we have to."

Now Maour was getting the picture. Maybe this was so easy for a reason.

'Desperate, not great at fighting head on, and already different, disrespected no matter what,' Toothless mused, summarizing what Maour was already thinking. 'And they weren't really bothered by the Queen's existence anyway. I guess that all makes sense.' He tilted his head. 'There are strange sounds coming from below us.'

"Really?" Maour looked down at the deck beneath his feet, and remembered what, or more accurately who was down there. "Bertha? I think your crew is getting a little impatient." But what could they be doing down there?

"Camicazi, go bring five of them up," Bertha instructed after a moment, picking up the treaty and waving it in the air, helping the ink dry. "Three of our most level-headed, and two of our most impulsive."

"What do I tell them? You know they'll expect to know what they're walking into," Camicazi remarked, grinning slyly.

"They're going to meet our tribe's newest allies," Bertha said. "Simple and vague. I want to get a good idea of how they'll react before bringing the whole crew up."

'Bertha seems smarter than most Vikings,' Toothless murmured, watching the large Chief approvingly. 'I expected her to just have Camicazi bring them all up at once and hope for the best.'

"You wouldn't know most Vikings," Maour murmured right back. "But yes, she is." Probably another result of how the Bog Burglar tribe operated internally.

"Oy, I'm not deaf," Bertha interjected, glaring at Maour. "Why do you talk to it, anyway?"

_He_," Maour stressed, "is like you or me. The only differences are language and appearance." And apparently instinct, and probably some other things, but Maour was trying to make a point, not be as accurate as possible.

Toothless stalked forward, eyeing Bertha sternly. He nodded to Maour, visibly indicating that he agreed with what Maour had just said.

"Don't tell my crew that; not all of them are neutral towards flying reptiles," Bertha warned. "Hearing you say something like that will just enrage them."

"Allies treating my brother like an animal will enrage _me_," Maour retorted. "And him, though we both can control ourselves."

"Better a friendly animal than an enemy," Bertha reasoned. "Does it matter, so long as we're not attacking either of you?"

'Yes.' Toothless growled softly. 'It does.` He circled Bertha, still growling.

She turned to watch him, nervously putting her hand just above her sword hilt. "Maour?"  
'No, deal with me,' Toothless asserted, addressing her directly, though she could not hear him. 'Maour, do not translate.'

"I don't see how this is helping, but okay," Maour agreed skeptically. "He says to deal with him, and wants me to not translate for a moment," he relayed sheepishly.

'You don't trust me,' Toothless said blandly, still circling, slowly getting closer. 'Animal, or person?' He stopped, very obviously growling and warbling in turn, contradicting himself with every new sound.

Bertha's eyes narrowed, and her hand wavered. "What am I supposed to do?" she asked Maour. "I don't understand it."  
"Beats me," Maour replied unhelpfully, trying to decipher his brother's strategy on his own. He had no idea what Toothless was trying to do.

Toothless glared at Bertha for a long moment, before closing his eyes and shaking his head. 'I hear Camicazi coming back. We do not have time for this.' He returned to Maour's side.

"So… what were you going to do?" Maour still had no idea.

'I don't know; I was making it up as I went,' Toothless admitted. 'She may have a point; being treated like an animal is demeaning, but it is still a step up from a demon or an enemy to be slaughtered. We can more easily get them to understand the whole truth later when we have time.'

"He says we don't have time for anything more than 'friendly animal' right now," Maour related sourly, knowing that the Bog Burglars would be up any minute. "But we won't leave it like that forever."

Bertha stared at him, and then Toothless. Her face was unreadable, but if Maour had to guess, he would say she was troubled.

Then the hatch that led down into the bowels of the ship flipped open, and the time for talking to Bertha alone was over. Camicazi popped up, getting out of the way and gesturing grandly at Toothless, pointing to something just out of sight for those who had yet to climb up. "Meet our newest allies!"

A woman with a large bun of flaxen yellow hair popped into sight, her head the only part of her above the rim of the hatch. Her eyes widened, and she quickly scurried up, moving quite adeptly despite her bulk, clearly torn between attacking and gaping at her seemingly unconcerned Chief.

"Stand down, Gretta," Bertha commanded. "They're allies."

"Dragons can't be allies," Gretta objected, not sounding all that sure of herself. She had an ax at her waist, but she wasn't reaching for it. "Can they?"

"O' course they can; else we'd be defendin' ourselves righ' now," a burly woman remarked, casually climbing up behind Gretta, and eyeing Toothless curiously.

The next two women up onto deck both nervously made to draw their weapons, but stopped before actually doing so, clearly reading the non-hostile mood Toothless was projecting-

And, Maour noticed with a sly grin, Toothless was definitely going all out on that. He was sitting on his hind legs, eyes as wide as they would go, ears and frills sticking out in a way that made him look both curious and slightly silly. No claws were visible, and his slightly open mouth clearly held no teeth. All in all, he couldn't look more harmless than he did at the moment.

Which made the last woman's reaction even more surprising, if not exactly unexpected. She had fiery red hair, so red Maour suspected it had been dyed, and practically flew up the last few rungs of the ladder once she saw what was waiting for her, drawing a pair of short swords even as she rolled to the side and charged, all in one fluid movement-

Only to be blocked by Camicazi and two of the other Bog Burglars, all of whom had clearly been expecting this. The woman hesitated to strike members of her own tribe, and that was all the time Camicazi needed to deftly grab her wrists and squeeze. Strangely enough, a simple squeeze made the woman drop both swords as if her hands no longer worked, and she winced, pulling away with startled and terrified eyes.

Not a single sound had been made throughout the entire fight, if such a short and one-sided encounter could be called such, and the twin thumps of sword hilts and blades hitting the deck sounded loud by comparison.

"That's Asira," Bertha calmly explained. "Showed up one day a few years ago and begged to be taken in. She isn't totally right in the head, but she's a good sailor and an amazing fighter when motivated."

'She does not smell insane either,' Toothless noted, sniffing at the wind. He still hadn't dropped his 'cute' facade, but his voice was anything but, disgruntled and annoyed. 'I am beginning to think that dragons can only smell a certain kind of madness.'

"So…" Maour took in how Asira was edging towards her swords, even now. "Is there a way to get her to understand we're not a threat?"

"Of course." Bertha picked up the treaty and handed it to the nearest Bog Burglar, who proceeded to shove it into Asira's hands.

Maour almost protested that, but it was over before he could object. He really didn't think it was a good idea to give the only copy they had to someone who was not well, mentally. They could always make another one, but he didn't want to push his luck.

Asira's eyes quickly scanned down the page and narrowed as they went. Eventually, she handed the treaty to Camicazi, much to Maour's relief, and retrieved her swords, calmly sliding them into their sheaths.

Then, to Maour's utter bemusement, she turned around and left them there, heading to a pile of spare rope and sitting down by it, pulling one end to herself.

"Back to work," Bertha explained. "She may be a little odd, but she can read, and she trusts me. That's all she needs."

'She unnerves me,' Toothless muttered. 'What if she is just waiting to strike?'

"Keep your guard up," Maour responded quietly. "She unnerves me, too." It was hard to tell what might set someone like that off. He understood Vikings, but no Viking would ever just calm down like that. No dragon would either, not so easily. Asira was not someone he could predict in the slightest, though it seemed she did follow some internal logic, for Bertha and the other Bog Burglars to so easily predict and counter her actions.

"So these ones are allies," Gretta asked, speaking to Bertha. "Jus' them, or..?"

"More than jus' them, but I've yet to get an accurate assessment o' their island's military strength," Bertha replied neutrally. "What we see here is worth the alliance on its own, and we know there is more."

Camicazi handed the treaty to Gretta. "Here. When you're done with it, take it down and make copies."

"The only one good at writin' fast, so I get stuck with that job, I take it?" Gretta grinned, grabbing the treaty. "I'll read as I copy." She descended back into the ship with the treaty.

Maour supposed he was going to get plenty of chances to perfect his signature, depending on how enthusiastic Gretta was about making them backups. He and Bertha would have to sign every copy of the treaty, eventually. At least now he could keep one to bring home and show the pack.

The remaining three women stood awkwardly, unwilling to go below deck or just go back to their jobs with a black dragon sitting patiently in front of them. They were clearly at a loss as to what to do next.

"How many more people do you have below deck?" Maour asked Bertha.

"A dozen or so," Bertha replied. "This won't take long. Camicazi, bring up some more, and the rest of you be ready to stop them from breaking our treaty."

What followed was a predictable, repetitive process. The reactions seemed split into two categories. Either worried obedience, which Maour had already seen-

Or, as the last woman up on deck demonstrated quite thoroughly, loud objections.

"Yer crazy, Bertha!" the raven-haired woman growled, disarmed but no less angry. "Dragons are the reason I'm here. I'll not serve any Chief who allies with 'em."

On second thought, maybe this one's reaction was a little too severe to be a good example. Maour winced at that outright treasonous declaration. The other women had just hurled abuse until Bertha ordered them to shut up. None had gone that far. Even Toothless was eyeing the woman with a surprised look that did nothing to diminish his 'cute' appearance.

"Is that so, Hildegarde?" Bertha asked dangerously, stepping forward.

"Aye, Bertha," Hildegarde gritted angrily. "I'll serve ye loyally until the gathering gets started, and then I'll find me own way off of this island."

"Done." Bertha glared at her mutinous subject. "Betray us or strike at our allies before then, and you will be punished as any of mine would. Do it _after_, and I'll treat you as an enemy."

"So no difference, then," Hildegard muttered rebelliously.

"Actually, no, I'm changing my mind," Bertha decided. "You're spending the next week in the brig. I'll let you out once the meeting starts, but you're too much of a liability now."

Hildegarde did not struggle as three women led her right below deck. She seemed fine with the idea of spending a week imprisoned. Her eyes never once left Toothless, glaring with hate.

"Saw that one coming," one of the other women remarked. "She's not one to work with dragons."

"Allies are worth provoking a single Bog Burglar," Bertha declared. "Anyone else want to join her in leaving the tribe?"

Nobody volunteered. Most of them, even the angry ones, seemed offended by the very suggestion.

"Then these two are allies, and you'll treat them as such," Bertha declared with an air of finality. "At ease."

That seemed to be the signal for the women to go back to their normal schedules, but most didn't move. A few headed down below, but seven in total remained, staring awkwardly at Toothless.

'I am getting tired of holding this,' Toothless remarked casually. 'My ears hurt, and I think I'm giving myself a headache from keeping my eyes wide so long.'

Maour decided to be proactive. He took a step forward, drawing the women's' attention. "Seriously, we're friendly. You don't have to… well, stand there and wait for something to happen."

"Give 'em time to adjust, I'm still jumpy around you two myself," Bertha grumbled. "For now though, there's one more thing that needs to be done."

"Yeah," Camicazi jumped in, enthusiastic to be doing something, or anything at all. "Getting the Order-Keeper to declare you two under his protection."

"And more importantly, doing it before any of his men notice the black scaly bulk sitting on my deck," Bertha added. "They patrol the island and the ships, looking for trouble. One will be along soon enough, but he'll be a low-level guard. We need to get you two to the actual Order-Keeper."

"Without you getting skewered or diced in the process," Camicazi added happily. "These guys mean business, which is hilarious given the tribe's name."

"They're the Peaceables because they keep the peace at all tribal gatherings, not because they can't hold their own in a fight," Bertha sighed. "You know that."

"Pick a stupid tribe name and I'll mock it. I know, I just don't care," Camicazi retorted.

"Anyway," Maour interjected, hoping to get things back on track, "we need to do this now. Where does this Order-Keeper usually hang around, and how do we get his protection?"

'And will I have to look harmless to do it?' Toothless whined, slumping slightly. 'Maour, can I go back to normal now?'

"Yeah, sure," Maour agreed, surprised his brother felt he needed permission. "We're done with the whole 'cute might stop them from throwing sharp objects' strategy."

'Good.' Toothless slumped, let his teeth shoot back into place, and narrowed his eyes, looking much more like an actual dragon. There were a few startled inhales of grunts from the crew who had been watching him, but no other response. He walked around in a tight circle to stand by Maour, only watching the rest of the ship out of the corner of his eye.

"The Order-Keeper is usually on the island itself somewhere," Bertha explained, pointing out at the bare hill that basically made up the entire island. "We can't see him from here, so on the other side right now."

Now that Maour was looking, he could see men sitting around the island, dotted across the large hill like freckles, grey and green lumps. "Why do they look like that?"  
"The Peaceables are a strange lot." Bertha crossed her arms, staring out at the island alongside Maour. "You'd have to ask them yourself. They don't wear metal armor unless fighting an actual war; you'll see them in full kit once other tribes start showing. The only one wearing armor will be the Order-Keeper, which is why I'm sure he's not within view."

"Shines like the sun," Camicazi explained. "A full-body suit of polished iron, so that he stands out from a mile away."

"He's supposed to be easy to find; that's the point." Bertha pointed out at the island. "Dropping in on him like you did us will get you speared through the heart. We've gotta go on foot."

"Somehow, I don't think a black dragon and a man in black armor are getting to the other side of that hill unnoticed," Maour remarked.

"Nope," Bertha agreed. "And while you'd probably just be watched, your dragon would be driven off. Unless…"

Camicazi grinned forebodingly. "We brought a few bolas and chains," she remarked helpfully.

Toothless growled at her. 'I am _not _comfortable with being tied up,' he objected, drawing his tail in close to him as if to defend it.

"Yeah, I don't think either of us wants to go that way," Maour agreed.

"Relax, you big coward," Camicazi quipped, leering at Toothless mockingly. "If you can't bear a little deception, you'll never get anywhere in life."

"I can't bear being helpless among enemies," Toothless retorted sourly.

"Again, not happening," Maour agreed. "Too risky."

"Okay… how about we loop a chain around his neck, but nothing else, and have you lead him along?" Camicazi proposed thoughtfully, apparently getting that this was serious, and that teasing was a waste of time. "He'd have to act docile, but if things go bad he's not helpless."

Toothless glared at her, but when he spoke, his voice was resigned. 'Maour, if you are the one holding the other end, then I can do that.'

"I still don't like it," Maour complained, "but fine. Toothless says he can tolerate that. But once we get to the Order-Keeper, I'm not going to pretend he's some restrained animal. The peace needs to apply to both of us, and I am _not _going to lead Toothless around with a leash once the other tribes start showing up." If he and Toothless were going to be here anyway, they'd also be working to change or at least challenge as many minds as possible, and that would not help at all.

"This is just to get the dragon past the rest of the Peaceables; you'd have to tell the Order-Keeper the full truth in any case," Bertha agreed. "Camicazi, go-"

"Get the chains, I know," Camicazi cut in, before darting over to the hatch leading down into the ship. "What am I, your errand girl?"

Bertha didn't bother replying to that. They waited until Camicazi reemerged, carrying several loops of a sturdy chain, or more accurately dragging it, as she was only holding the ends. The majority of it rattled and clanked along behind her as she clambered up the ladder.

Then she handed it off to Maour, and he was struck by what he was doing. This felt _wrong_. Very, very wrong. He hesitated, looking Toothless in the eye.

'Whatever it takes to protect our home and family,' Toothless said quietly, understanding Maour's unease. 'If I had hands, I'd put it on myself, but I don't, so you have to.'

Toothless was asking him to do it. Maour still didn't like it, but this was all just for show, and protection besides. He forced himself to lightly wrap the chain around Toothless's broad neck twice, and then, in a moment of inspiration, subtly hooked one of the links into the front of the saddle. Now he couldn't actually tighten the loops by accident, because he'd just pull on the saddle.

"Convincing enough at a distance," Bertha objected, "but anyone who gets close will see that you don't actually have much control. We need more-"

"This is enough," Maour cut in firmly. "Toothless will make up for it by acting beaten down and docile. Nobody would ever guess the truth."

"There are rumors of a dragon rider floating around," Bertha countered. "They might just put two and two together."

"So?" Maour asked carefully, knowing he didn't want to truly oppose Bertha if at all possible. "They will still see a dragon that is clearly a captive, however lightly restrained. Thinking I am the dragon rider will not change that."

"On your head be it, if they start asking questions," Bertha grumbled. "Our alliance does not cover the Peaceables, so if they attack you, we will not break the peace to defend you."

"If they attack me or him, we're out of here," Maour declared. "We'll find the Order-Keeper, grab him from the air, and introduce ourselves somewhere safe." That would be risky, extremely so, but if it was too dangerous he and Toothless could just let things cool down and try again later.

"Fine. Let's go." Bertha headed towards the side of the ship, and Camicazi followed.

"You're going?" Maour asked.

"Why would I not? This will be fun," she replied eagerly.

* * *

A half-hour of tense walking later, and Camicazi was probably questioning whether this was worth it after all. Nobody would be able to describe what they were doing as fun. Nerve-wracking, risky, and dangerous, yes, but not fun.

Maour led Toothless along by the chain, making sure to tug on it every once in a while, knowing it would not actually tighten around Toothless's neck with how he had arranged it. Toothless walked with his head down, his tail dragging on the sand, and generally looked miserable.

The only reason Maour didn't believe Toothless himself was that he could hear his brother, who kept up a constant stream of directions and encouragement.

'Tug it again; I see a Peaceable looking our way. Harder, you're just pulling on the saddle, so don't be afraid to yank on it. I'm going to stumble in a second to make it look better…'

Bertha and Camicazi led the way, walking confidently around the edge of the hill. If they were nervous, it didn't show.

The disguise was working, no matter how nerve-wracking. None of the Peaceables had done more than look from afar; only a few had even stared for more than the time it took to understand the scene. They seemed to find watching the horizon more interesting than three Vikings and an obviously captive dragon.

They were disciplined. That was actually more worrying, not less. Maour preferred unruly, easily-distracted Vikings as enemies. Right now, their discipline was a good thing, but if the Order-Keeper decided that Toothless needed to die, that same discipline would make getting away harder. More focused enemies were more dangerous enemies.

Ideally, these Vikings would not be enemies. Maour heaved a sigh of relief when he caught his fight glimpse of a heavily-armored Viking standing on the shore in the distance, reflecting the rising sun with every small movement. There was no way that was anyone but the Order-Keeper; he looked exactly as Bertha had described him.

Once the Order-Keeper noticed them, turning for some other reason and catching sight of the approaching group, he began walking to meet them halfway, moving at an impressively fast pace despite the almost impractically heavy armor covering him.

Bertha hailed him once they were close enough for her to make herself heard, which was actually some distance away. "Ho, Order-Keeper!"

He yelled something back, but he was too far away to be heard. Bertha had an impressive set of lungs; Maour and Toothless had both winced when she shouted.

Eventually, the two groups reached each other, meeting on a grassy slope by the beach. The Order-Keeper removed his metal helmet and looked the group over.

"Dragons can be sacrificed, but ritual combat must take place off-shore if you feel the need for it," he began without preamble. "If this is a contest with the dragon as a prize, my men and I are sworn to be neutral in all things between tribes, so no, we can't participate."

"We're actually not here for any of that," Maour responded, faintly sick at the idea of Toothless being sacrificed to some god. "You are the Order-Keeper, right?"

"Of course. And you…" he leaned in, looking Maour over. "Clearly not a woman, so not a Bog Burglar unless Ragnarok is coming and they've let one leave the island, and definitely not one of mine. What is your business here?" His voice was dangerous now.

"I seek to be placed under your protection, as I wish to speak with many of the Chiefs that will be meeting here," Maour requested formally. "Well, actually, I request that for both myself and my brother."

"That protection only applies to Chiefs and their retinues, or those who speak for their tribe in some capacity. And where is this brother?"

"I speak for the Isle of Night; we have no Chief," Maour declared proudly, knowing that what he said was true whether the Isle of Night only meant him and Toothless, or the entire pack. "That would make my brother my retinue." He could just as truthfully have claimed Toothless spoke for the Isle of Night and that he himself was the retinue, but they were pushing their luck enough as it was. Hopefully, the Order-Keeper would not press him on where his brother was.

"Then if you swear to uphold the peace and abide by my decisions, of course, you can be placed under my protection," the Order-Keeper agreed, far less hostilely. "It is always good to see new tribes join our meetings. I believe the last was actually the Bog Burglars." He cast a glance over at Bertha. "Who you seem to know. You are aware that breaking an oath sworn on sacred ground has consequences both here and with the gods?"

"I was made aware of this, yes." That would actually make all of this easier, not harder. He was telling the truth, if in a restricted way when it came to the supposed Isle of Night, so he would not be breaking any oaths. The Order-Keeper would not have to worry about whether he was really representing a tribe, and not just some trick being pulled by Bertha or anyone else, because with how serious this 'sacred ground' business seemed to be, nobody would dare break it. If it could hold Dagur's homicidal insanity, it had to be a strong deterrent.

"Then we shall swear you to the peace now, and that is all that is needed." The Order-Keeper withdrew a small dagger. "The oath is made over blood. I hope you don't mind."

"Does my brother need to swear too?" Maour asked worriedly. "He has a bit of trouble speaking…" That almost felt too obvious, but the Order-Keeper probably wouldn't hear 'trouble speaking' and immediately think 'the chained up dragon must somehow be his brother because it can't talk!'

The Order-Keeper shook his head and held out the dagger to Maour. "No, if you are in charge, your word will bind him. You will need a small amount of blood from him, though, freely given in my presence. It's just a custom, no more."

Maour understood why that last bit was said reassuringly. Blood was rumored to be used in darker things than sealing oaths, and the more superstitious Vikings might balk at giving it like this if the Order-Keeper did not reassure them that it was just to make the oath more official.

As for the rest… he took the dagger and held it up, looking it over. He himself was not superstitious, but there was no harm in checking for anything odd beforehand. It was just an ordinary blade, of good quality and fairly new. That was actually a little surprising, and quite reassuring. He would have expected an old blade if this was an old custom. A new one was a pleasant surprise.

"What do I have to say?" he asked, wanting to get on with it. After swearing himself, he needed Toothless's blood, and the Order-Keeper was right here, so if they could get this done before the Order-Keeper thought to question the presence of a seemingly irrelevant dragon, so much the better.

"I, whatever your name is, solemnly swear that I am indeed who I say, and have the right to speak for my tribe. I swear to uphold the peace of this place. I will not strike at another with intent to harm, or I will voluntarily submit to the judgment of the Order-Keeper, my own people, and the gods, whom the Order-Keeper will send me to immediately." The Order-Keeper's voice was steel.

That was… really, really harsh. If Maour was interpreting that right, any kind of attack was punishable with immediate execution. That was what the oath meant by the Order-Keeper sending the attacker to their gods immediately.

Still, he had no issues with it personally. He did worry about how many Vikings might get themselves executed by attacking Toothless, but that was out of his hands, and it would be their own faults.

"I, Svarturflugmaður, or Maour if you want my informal name, solemnly swear that I am indeed who I say, and have the right to speak for my people. I swear to uphold the peace of this place. I will not strike at another with intent to harm, or I will voluntarily submit to the judgment of the Order-Keeper, my own people, and the gods, whom the Order-Keeper will send me to immediately." Maour repeated, and then cut the palm of his hand with the knife, letting a few drops of blood stain it. The pain was a small price for the almost overly powerful protection he had just secured.

Now, for the rest. "My brother needs to freely give blood with you as a witness to be included in this, right?" Maour confirmed.

"Yes. If he is ill or injured, I can come to him, wherever he is," the Order-Keeper offered gravely. "You said he cannot speak."

"Not in any voice you'd be able to hear," Maour agreed. Before the Order-Keeper could respond, he turned to Toothless, and in the process dropped the chain he'd hooked to his belt while using the knife.

Toothless held out a paw immediately, obviously understanding what was going on. 'I suppose I don't have to say anything. They're not my gods anyway. I don't think I have any.'

Now _there _was a question to ask the Eldurs when they got home. Maour had somehow never wondered whether the dragons had some equivalent to gods, and had always just assumed they didn't, as nobody had ever mentioned any. It was a bit odd that Toothless wasn't even sure. The Eldurs probably had a good explanation for all of that.

"What are you doing?" the Order-Keeper asked incredulously.

Maour held out the knife under Toothless's upraised paw but did not cut him. He looked back at the Order-Keeper. "Freely given blood means my brother is protected by your peace."

Something pressed down on the knife from above, and hot blood dripped onto Maour's hand. Maour didn't even need to look to know the deed was done. Once Toothless had pulled his paw back, Maour stood and offered the knife to the flabbergasted Order-Keeper, and smiled widely. "Done."

The Order-Keeper took the knife back, never looking away from Toothless. "Where are you speaking for, again?"

Maour turned to Toothless and took the chains off of his neck, dropping them to the ground and promptly forgetting about them. He didn't like those chains. If Bertha wanted them back, she could get them later. "The Isle of Night. Those chains were just so that we could get to you without fighting a running battle. He is as capable as you or me of understanding what he is now bound by."

"Maour and Toothless are cool," Camicazi volunteered, breaking her silence. "Don't worry about it."

"I have no choice but to worry about it," the Order-Keeper remarked, staring at Toothless, "as I now have to explain to my men why a dragon is under our peace."

"Let me put it this way," Maour offered. "We wouldn't want this peace if he planned to break it. You'll have more trouble stopping everyone else who's coming from attacking us."

"Including my own men," the Order-Keeper sighed. "I must request that you and your… brother… come with me. We will circle the island, and I will inform all of my men personally that you two are under the peace. While we walk, you might explain this strange thing?" he asked hopefully.

"Sure," Maour agreed. He had no problems with talking, though the same secrets he kept from Bertha would be kept from the Order-Keeper. Any chance to practice explaining the truth about dragons was welcome. He had a feeling he was going to need that practice when less rule-conscious and more aggressive Vikings started showing up, even if they were bound to only use their words, not their fists or swords.

_**Author's Note:**_ **In case anyone is getting impatient, don't worry, next chapter is both the beginning of the actual meeting of tribes and the last one before we switch over to catch up with Heather.**

**Also, this chapter has not been beta-read, but I'm forging ahead anyway, as promised. If anything changes once my beta gets to it, it'll be noted up at the top of the chapter when I update this. The perils of non-coinciding schedules and busy weeks.**


	19. Chapter 19

'This is boring.' Toothless stretched out, clawing idly at one of the old logs used as seats up on the hill's summit. There was a circle of similar logs, all facing a new and as of now unlit bonfire in the middle. The grassy slope tapered off up here, creating a moderately large space that was flat and open.

Maour was sitting on the same log Toothless was clawing. He could feel his brother's restless movements through the old and slightly rotten wood. "Yes, it is." he would much rather be up in the sky, but this was the best way to be sure nothing bad happened when he and Toothless tried to land. This was the day of the meeting, and ships were approaching the island from all directions.

The last ten days had gone by in what felt like an hour, each one passing far too quickly. Those days had been spent roaming the small island, flying for fun, fishing, and talking to Bog Burglars, though that was a little awkward. Most of them didn't mind Maour, but Toothless made them wary, and the feeling was mutual. They were allies, but friends would be stretching it for most of the crew.

'I think we should fly around,' Toothless suggested. 'Take a closer look at some of those ships.'

"And get shot down, if we get too close," Maour countered, having already reasoned all of this out the night before. "They won't know we're part of the peace until they land." The Order-Keeper was amiable enough, though also still wary of Toothless, and he was dedicated to his job. The moment each ship dropped anchor, several Peacables would make sure everyone on board knew who, exactly, the peace covered.

Then the Order-Keeper himself would make the rounds and add all of the Chieftains, heirs, and other Vikings to the peace, using the same oath and ceremonial knife Maour and Toothless had used. That would take a while, but the ships were all varying distances away, so there would not be much waiting involved for any one ship. That was the closest Vikings could get to a line; happening to be so spread out as to arrive separately.

_Then,_ once night fell, the Chiefs and their seconds would make their way up to the hill, and introductions would be made. What had Bertha said about the schedule?

'_First night is bragging and updating the roster. Who's new, who's dead, all of that. The next day is mingling, and the next night is making deals and negotiating. Third day is whatever people feel like doing, and the third night is when the big stuff is announced.'_

In this case, the big stuff might be war. Astrid could and probably would convince Snotlout to make her vendetta official once she saw that Maour was representing his own people here, and therefore present to be challenged.

Astrid… Maour shivered. It was going to be nerve wracking to be on the same island as Astrid for several days. He and Toothless were going to sleep on a distant sea stack just within sight of the island, just in case, but still. Seeing her face to face and not needing to go for his scythe would be interesting.

Assuming she held to the peace. She and Dagur were wild cards, possibly crazy enough to not care about breaking it. Dagur might have held it before, but Maour wasn't going to count on it. So he and Toothless needed to be careful anyway.

Hence the plan to spend the day on this hilltop. Nobody had any reason to come up here until sundown, but everybody could see all that happened here from anywhere on the island. It gave the other tribes some time to get used to the idea of not attacking Toothless before coming into close contact with him, and also ensured no sneak attacks would be mounted today. Nobody could sneak up on the summit of this hill; there was absolutely nowhere to hide.

'What are you going to say to Astrid?' Toothless asked, seemingly out of the blue, looking up at Maour with wide, worried eyes. 'Last time did not go so well.'

"Last time was five years ago," Maour reminded him. "And I really don't know. I don't have much to say to her that hasn't been said already. Also, what brings that up?" He had been thinking about Astrid, among other things, but Toothless couldn't know that.

'That is Berk's crest, isn't it?' Toothless asked, looking out to sea. 'Use my eyes. It's far away.'

Maour did as instructed, and saw a distant sail approaching. That was Berk's crest all right, a Nightmare being stabbed by a large sword. Simple, direct, and dragon-fighting. Berk's identity in a nutshell.

"Yup. They'll get here after noon," Maour estimated. "See any other ships?"

Toothless turned in a slow circle, looking out to sea. 'There's one.'

Maour didn't recognize that crest, a pickaxe striking a man's skull. "Odd, that one. Any more?"

One complete circle later, and Maour pulled away from Toothless's vision. "So everyone else is too far out to see." That meant nobody would get to the island before noon, and most would likely arrive well after that. "I guess we can go flying for a few hours after all."

* * *

Those few hours passed quickly. Time always passed quickly when one was dreading something to come. Toothless ate a hearty meal of raw fish, but Maour passed up on the chance to land and have his own lunch. He was too nervous to be hungry. This felt like walking up to a tavern in the middle of some random village and announcing that he was the dragon rider. Stupid and possibly suicidal.

That feeling only increased as the first ship dropped anchor in the shallows of the island. The Berk ship, which would contain Snotlout, Astrid, Gobber, and whoever else they had brought along. Two of Maour's worst enemies, here on the same island as him.

He and Toothless watched from the summit as a small dinghy was rowed out to the Berkian ship, and the Order-Keeper let aboard. He disappeared below deck, and the ship was eerily still and silent for a time.

'I do not like this,' Toothless murmured. 'Even if I know it is safe in theory.'

"In practice, it feels just as unsafe as meeting up with Astrid normally would," Maour agreed, voicing his thoughts on the subject. "Remember, we cannot strike first, no matter what."

'Else the Peacables will do their best to execute us,' Toothless grunted. 'I know. The same goes for her. Should we provoke her? That might actually solve our problems. Her and Dagur.'

Maour had already considered that. 'Provoking Astrid might mean one of us dies to get rid of her. She'll only get one shot, but we don't want to risk that shot being fatal." It was too dangerous, especially given that if either of them died, the other was stranded, and thus as good as dead if real hostilities followed.

'Then I suppose it is a good thing Heather is not here; she would not care if provoking Dagur would be too dangerous,' Toothless remarked. 'But it is also too bad, because she might have been able to convince him to stop chasing her.'

"Maybe." He wasn't sure Dagur could be convinced of anything. "Also, are the Berserkers even coming?" Many ships could be seen approaching from all directions, but the Skrill emblem that meant Berserkers was absent.

Toothless spun in another slow circle, like he had hours before. 'Is that them?'

"Does the emblem have a Skrill?" Maour asked, not checking Toothless's vision. His brother knew all too well what a Skrill looked like.

'Yes. There are a lot of them. I count seven,' Toothless said worriedly. 'He brought a lot of ships.'

That was bad. Very bad. "I hope most stay offshore." Technically speaking, there was apparently a one ship limit per tribe; Camicazi's ship, which had shown up a few days ago, had to stay anchored pretty far out, as that would have made two ships for the Bog Burglars. Still, the idea of six Berserker ships prowling the waters around the island was not a comforting one.

'We'll have to find a sea stack that is further away from this island,' Toothless grumbled. 'One they cannot reach in the night.'

He was right. With six ships, Dagur could try and assault any sea stack within a night's stealthy sailing. They were going to need to be careful in where they slept, too. So much for the nights being a safe time, out of reach of all Vikings.

Maour continued to watch Astrid's ship, though his own eyes could not make out too much from this distance. Being linked with Toothless enhanced his night vision, but not really his overall vision, which was still very much limited.

Still, he could see enough to notice the Order-Keeper coming back onto the deck, and the dozen or so Vikings following along. The thin one with blond hair would be Astrid, and the…

Wait, where was Snotlout? He would be the one talking to the Order-Keeper, but that guy was somewhat short and portly. Had Snotlout put on weight?  
Wait, who cared? That was literally the least of Maour's concerns right now. Funny, but unimportant. What was more important was what the Berkians were going to do once they set foot on the island.

As it turned out, nothing.

'They are setting up tents,' Toothless observed.

"Everyone will; it's a hassle to go back and forth with no real docks, and this place is safe." The shore would be lined with clusters of tents soon enough.

* * *

Dagur and his Berserker fleet, if seven ships could be called that, arrived last, just before sunset. One ship split from the rest, coming to rest far from all the others, on the other side of the island. The remaining six seemed content to stay put, half an hour's sailing away from the island. Soon enough, Dagur and his men set foot on the island-

And immediately made their way around the shore to the Berkian encampment.

"That's not good," Maour muttered, watching the distant cluster of tents and Vikings closely. Astrid and Dagur meeting was something he somehow hadn't considered until now. They had a common interest, and a common affliction. That could be bad.

For now though, nothing happened. The figure he was pretty sure had to be Dagur pointed up at the hill, stomped around for a little bit, and did nothing, eventually settling down. So much for the better.

Nobody approached the hilltop until nightfall. Then, figures began to make the climb, from all sides, two from each encampment.

"Showtime, bud," Maour announced. "Ready?"

'Calm but dangerous, intelligent, on guard against any and all attacks, but not jumpy enough to strike first,' Toothless listed. 'Of course, I'm ready. Just be glad you did not bring a Myrkur along. They can only pull off intimidating if they're too tired to mess around.' He shifted to sit behind the log Maour had claimed, his wings folded in and ears alert, resting on his hind legs and curling his tail around the log behind Maour. It was the next best thing to actually sitting on the log, which was too weak and rotten to support him.

First to reach the summit of the hill was the Order-Keeper, who stood in front of the bonfire, watching the Vikings who had followed him as they took their seats.

Bertha and Camicazi immediately went to the log to the left of Toothless and calmly sat down, eyeing the other chiefs challengingly. This meeting was a lot of subtle challenges and posturing, and Bertha was starting right now, by demonstrating that she was perfectly fine sitting close to a dragon. Camicazi in particular was smirking at Astrid and Snotlout, flaunting her presence on the island.

The other chiefs and seconds all hesitated at some point in the process of picking their seats, eyeing the dragon among them cautiously or angrily, depending on the person. Toothless kept a very close eye on the large and imposing Viking garbed in chainmail that sat down on the log to his right, followed by a nondescript Viking.

Maour took careful note of the fact that the Berserkers and Berkians were both seated on the opposite side of the firepit, as far away from Toothless as possible, and next to each other. Snotlout had brought Astrid, of course, and Dagur had brought Savage. They were far too comfortable next to each other for Maour's liking.

Once all the chiefs were seated, the Order-Keeper began to speak. "Welcome, chiefs and seconds. The meeting of those in power will begin with the lighting of the bonfire, and all traditional rules apply to everyone on the island, as normal. Even the dragon seated among you, which is not at all normal. His Chief has assured me that he will keep the peace as all of you will, and he will in all ways be treated no differently here." The Order-Keeper pulled out a flint and began the laborious process of attempting to light a bonfire.

Maour interrupted a few attempts in. "If it helps, we can speed that up."

Toothless grinned when the Order-Keeper nodded and stepped away. He fired a small plasma blast into the center of the pile, and in moments the entire thing was ablaze. A round of instinctive flinching occurred all around the fire at the sound of his shot. If this was a meeting of reputation and challenges, Toothless had just scored over everyone there. Only Maour didn't flinch. Even Bertha couldn't help a reaction born of years of dragon-fighting.

The Order-Keeper bowed in their direction in thanks. "Now, for the introductions. We will begin with no one in particular and proceed to the left. This time, let's start with the Hysterics." He turned to face said tribe's chief.

The larger of the two Vikings there stood. "I am chief of the Hysterics, Norbert the Nutcase. Hear me scream and despair!" He seemed to remember something. "Oh, and my second in command is Tomon the Terribly Bad." Said slightly scrawny Viking waved.

Maour recalled what Bertha had, over the course of the week, told him of the Hysterics. Norbert was apparently a habitual liar, and chief of a tribe that had a reputation for dramatics and stupidity exceptional even among Vikings.

The next Chief stood. He was a large man with red hair and a ceremonial pickaxe. "I am chief of the Rockbreakers, Sigvard the Smasher. My pickaxe is as deadly as my sword. And this is Shin, my nephew." The skinny Viking next to him grunted in acknowledgment.

The Rockbreakers were, according to Bertha, stubborn and totally lacking in the military department, specializing more in supplying wars than entering them, though every one of them could fight, like all Vikings. They had to be the ones with the skull-splitting pickaxe as an insignia, given both Sigvard and Shin wore elaborate, sharpened pickaxes at their belts like weapons.

The next man was one Maour knew from all the stories. A giant of a man, with crazy hair and a crazy beard, and beady eyes. "And I am the one and only Alvin the Treacherous, Chief of the Outcasts. Let me be clear, that name was earned." He scowled over at the Berserkers. "Oi, Savage! You traitorous scum! Because o' you defecting, I 'ad to get a new second! This 'ere is Bertel the Brainless." He gestured to the short and portly Viking next to him.

Maour needed no advice from Bertha on that one. He had no plans to deal with Alvin or even speak to him if at all possible.

The next Viking was a thin and lithe man who moved quickly and abruptly as he stood. "I am Aldir the Aggravating, chief of the Waxears. As always, if anyone thinks they know why Thor is mad at us, we'd love to hear it. And this is my daughter, Kim." A small girl, about twelve by Maour's guess, waved happily, then went back to staring in awe at Toothless. She certainly didn't seem at all scared of him.

'What does he mean by Thor being mad at them?' Toothless asked quietly.

Maour shrugged wordlessly, at a loss for an answer. Bertha had suggested he approach the Waxears about entering the defensive alliance, because they were one of the tribes more likely to appreciate the idea, but she hadn't said much about them beyond that.

The Viking sitting on the log to the right of Maour and Toothless stood. "I am chief of the Visithugs, Duncar the Dilapidator. We pillage as a way of life, as all Vikings should! And this is Lewin, my senior strategist." A shifty-looking man with a black mustache nodded subtly.

Maour stood, knowing that he was next in line to introduce himself. "I am chief representative of the Isle of Night, Svarturflugmaður. And this is my brother, Svarturkappi. We will die defending our home if need be, but detest violence." Hopefully, that would send the right message, as strange as it was for anyone to proudly claim they didn't like violence at a meeting of Vikings.

Bertha stood immediately after him, cutting off any potential comments on Maour's declaration. "I am chief of the Bog-Burglars, Big-Boobied Bertha. Check your pockets when we're around. And this is my daughter and heir, Camicazi."

Camicazi tossed a pair of underpants to Astrid, who caught them with a disgusted look on her face. "Give those back to Gobber when you see him and tell him not to leave them in plain sight next time." She grinned maniacally.

Toothless laughed, drawing wary looks from most of the Vikings around him.

The Order-Keeper intervened, an annoyed look on his face. "Next would be the Meatheads."

A large man stood, rocking the log as he lifted his weight off of it. "I am chief of the Meatheads, Mogadon the Merciless. Best chicken and venison in the archipelago! And this is my son, Thuggory." A man Maour had mentioned in passing, someone known from prior interactions, stood at the acknowledgment.

The Meatheads were another tribe Bertha had recommended Maour approach about entering the defensive alliance, but he was far more hesitant to approach anyone who had known him from before, which both Mogadon and Thuggory did. He'd wait and see how things went.

Then came those after the Meatheads. "I am chief of the Lava-Louts, Pigfeet the Perilous. You can just call me Trott, everyone does. And this is my second-in-command, Ross." The man speaking gave an easy smile, and gestured to the fairly similar man sitting next to him. They were both nondescript, save for a mischievous glint in their eyes, out of place in such imposing Viking figures.

'They seem nice,' Toothless remarked.

They did, at that, but looks could be deceiving, and probably were in this case. The Lava-Louts were, according to Bertha, always under attack from tribes to the far East, whom they had apparently raided ceaselessly in generations past. They would be absolutely no use in a defensive alliance in any case, because they were already fighting their own wars on a regular basis.

Dagur stood, fingering his holstered ax and eyeing Toothless. "I am chief of the Berserkers, Dagur the Deranged. I hunt dragons for sport. And this is Savage." He gestured to the man behind him. "But nobody cares about him."

Maour met eyes with Dagur, and did not shudder at the crazed gleam in the other man's gaze. He knew Dagur was crazy. The fact that he had not yet attacked implied he was just sane enough to want to live past the hour, so they were mostly safe at the moment.

Snotlout stood, beaming with overinflated ego and pride. "I am chief of Berk, Snotlout the Superior. Berk stands at the forefront of the war against dragons. And this is Astrid, my counselor." He gestured to Astrid, who was glaring at Maour in undisguised hatred. She might have been supposed to say something, but she clearly didn't care.

After a moment, the Order-Keeper clapped his hands together. "That's the introductions. Now, we have some new faces. What of Stoick the Vast?"

Snotlout sneered out at the crowd. "Stoick died in his sleep recently. As his son Hiccup," and at this he shot Maour a glare, "is a filthy traitor, I was next in line."

Maour snorted, unable and unwilling to hold back what he knew. "Sure, died in his sleep. Did you and Astrid kill him together, Snotlout, or did she do it herself?"He knew he sounded bitter, and he didn't care. Getting the truth out was worth it, and nobody would suspect Gobber if he said it now, before he could possibly have spoken to him.

"I don't know what you're talking about, traitor." Snotlout looked shaken, and several of the older chiefs eyed him angrily. They were the ones who had been on good terms with Stoick.

Alvin was one of the ones glaring at Snotlout. "Oy, Snotlout. I don't take kindly to you offin' Stoick before him and I could settle old scores."

The Order-Keeper tried to move the conversation along. "That explains that. We also have an entirely new tribe here. That of the Isle of Night. If Svarturflugmaður would tell us a little about his people, I'm sure it would save quite a bit of time later."

Snotlout sneered at Maour. "He has no people. We kicked his traitorous butt off of Berk years ago. I'm surprised he's still alive."

Maour wasn't content to let that pass, either. "Wrong, Snotlout. I exiled myself before you got the chance. But that is in the past. I represent the Isle of Night. We wish to live in peace with all tribes, but that is becoming more and more difficult, which is why I am here."

'So far, so good,' Toothless said warily. 'Half of them aren't even watching me anymore.'

That was good. Maour relaxed a little, despite the circumstances. There was something incredibly freeing about taking Snotlout on with words. He preferred talking to fighting anyway.

Smith of the Waxears interrupted. "How come we've never heard of this 'Isle of Night' before?" He sounded genuinely interested.

"Because it doesn't exist!"

"Shut up Snotlout, you know nothing. That at least hasn't changed." Yes, this was very freeing. Maour was beginning to have fun with the fact that Snotlout couldn't strike back. "Anyway, we've been around for quite a while, and living anonymously was how we kept the peace. No one attacks a tribe they don't know exists. But that won't last forever. Eventually, someone with ill-will towards some of my people will stumble upon us."

Astrid pointed her ax at Toothless, quivering with rage. "You count a dragon among those people."

Maour nodded. "Yes, we do." Way more than one, but they didn't need to know that. "I would think the fact that my brother is sitting peacefully and listening carefully would force you to question some of your assumptions, Astrid, but I know you're hopeless."

"Hiccup, what in Thor's name is going on?" Thuggory asked incredulously.

Maour frowned, unwilling to go over explaining himself once again. "I have cast that name aside, in favor of better ones given to me. I am Svarturflugmaður, and you will refer to me as such." He smiled. "My friends and family use another name, but you'll have to earn that right."

Thuggory scoffed. "Well, you might be crazy, but at least you've grown a spine now."

"So, little scrawny Hiccup is the dragon rider," Dagur exclaimed, finally getting it, or maybe just losing what little patience he had in waiting for an opening in the argument. "I ought to gut you right now. Where is Heather?"

Maour smirked. "Far from here and getting farther as we speak. And somehow I doubt you could gut me even if you were allowed to try, given I fought you to a standstill last time. I hope the hip wound healed well?" That might be a little too far. Maour resolved not to test Dagur too much.

Dagur spluttered, angrily, visibly beside himself with rage. "You know that wasn't a fair fight! Besides, you had help."

Maour nodded, keeping calm. "I did. And will continue to, for the foreseeable future. Let me give you some advice. Stop chasing someone who wants you dead. If you ever caught her, Heather would take the opportunity to kill you herself, for good reason." He returned to addressing the whole assembly. "My people are fairly laid-back and intelligent, but deadly when forced to defend themselves." Best to move on before Dagur exploded.

Sigvard of the Rockbreakers grunted thoughtfully. "Why is it called the Isle of Night?"

'I just came up with it; there's no way you're telling them its named after our species,' Toothless quickly said, looking over at Maour.

Maour thought fast, striving to come up with an explanation that could be worded to only apply to himself, but was also true and fit the name- and found one almost immediately. "We aren't your average Vikings." Or even Vikings at all. "We have for various reasons adjusted to sleep in the day and be awake at night. We are, though not naturally so, nocturnal. Hence, the Isle of Night." Well, the humans weren't naturally nocturnal. Night Furies were, though not by necessity. And the fact that he himself was nocturnal was on the very short list of information the pack had deemed acceptable to be shared if necessary.

That announcement was met with a varied assortment of stares. Most of the chieftains and various other seconds didn't seem quite sure what to make of that.

'You handled that one well, but you should distract them with something less dangerous,' Toothless suggested.

That was a good idea, and Maour had just the thing. "Oh, and Norbert?" he continued after a moment. "Your tribe says the world is round, right?"

Norbert nodded happily. "Yes, we do."

"Well, it turns out you're right. I've seen proof of that. Go up high enough on dragon-back, and anyone can see the horizon curving." That ought to make the Hysterics happy, and thoroughly distract everyone else.

"You're telling us a Hysteric wasn't lying?" the weedy man who had been introduced as Lewin exclaimed. "Yeah, right."

Norbert laughed happily, totally ignoring Lewin. "We knew it! You might be as crazy as we are, but at least you've proven that!" He abruptly frowned. "But of course, no one will believe you either."

Maour shrugged. "Probably not." Lewin was a good indicator of how most people would take that. 'The dragon rider agrees' was not going to be a strong argument in favor of anything. "Any other questions about flying or what one can see from the air?" That was a safe topic.

Astrid spit into the fire, before gritting one out. "Where is your island?"

Maour glared at her. "So you can come and kill us, or die trying, which is much more likely? Not a chance." He decided to out Astrid in front of everyone. "Oh, and you all should know Astrid is as crazy as Dagur, though better at hiding it. Dragons can smell insanity, and Dagur and Astrid both have it bad."

Astrid grinned, shocking Maour, and Snotlout, who edged away from her. "Yup. Doesn't matter."

Since when had she figured that out? That was a question for later.

Dagur laughed maniacally. "I agree with that! And Hiccup, nothing has changed. I can still kick your scrawny butt any time, any place." He was glaring now, clearly still smarting from the earlier insult.

"Except on this island, any time in the next few days," Maour corrected calmly.

"That is correct," the Order-Keeper announced loudly. "Now, do we have any other new business to attend to tonight?"

Chieftains and their seconds looked around, watching each other. Some stared at Toothless, and others Maour. Everybody seemed to be waiting to see what crazy thing would happen next.

After a few moments, the Order-Keeper coughed and broke the silence. "Then I believe that concludes updating the rolls. We will meet here tomorrow at sundown for the official negotiation session. Please enjoy the rest of the day prior to that in peaceful catching-up and conversation." He emphasized peaceful, eyeing Dagur.

"I don' see why we should listen to you," Bertel, Alvin's second in command, objected. "You let a dragon in on the peace, so it don't mean much anyway."

The Order-Keeper stiffened. He turned to face Bertel, glaring dangerously. "Test the peace, then, and find out whether the gods still consider an oath sealed in blood to be binding. You will get to ask them personally."

Alvin threw a large hand over Bertel's mouth, looking like he wished he could punch instead of muffle. "Oy, he doesn' speak for me."

"No, he does not, Alvin, but you had better be careful," the Order-Keeper warned. "You have a habit of breaking your word. Do not give me reason to believe you will do so here."

"'Ere's the only place anyone will deal wit' me," Alvin gritted. "Ye know I'll not give that up for anythin'."

"Good." The Order-Keeper stared into the eyes of all the other Chiefs and their subordinates, including Maour and Toothless. "Anyone else want to question the peace?"

No reply. Vikings they might be, but threat of death and _then _punishment held their tongues no matter what they thought of the matter. It would hold their blades, too. Hopefully.

"As I thought. I am always available to settle disputes, day or night, rain or shine," the Order-Keeper continued. "Bring it to me. And remember, any violence whatsoever is prohibited. Sparring matches must take place offshore, and while minor accidents do not count as intentional violence, I am not going to believe the excuse of an accident without a _thorough _investigation. Good night to you all."

That was clearly the signal for everyone to disperse. The Rockbreakers, Hysterics, and Waxears all left together, their chiefs talking amiably enough, headed down the hillside. Mogadon and his son stared at Maour for a long moment before leaving, followed closely by the Lava Louts and most of the other tribes.

Astrid and Dagur glared at Maour with twin looks of utter hatred. Dagur reached for his ax, and Astrid for hers.

Then Savage spoke up. "Sir, the preparations?"

Dagur's mood lifted in an instant. "Perfect. I need a way to blow off some steam." He practically sprinted down the hill. Savage followed at a more steady pace.

"I am going to kill you," Astrid said slowly. "You, and every dragon you care about." Her voice was hot with barely constrained rage. "And some of them are not here." With that, she turned her back to him and began the walk down the hill.

"You're doomed, Hiccup," Snotlout said bluntly, smiling smugly. "Even if you did trick the Order-Keeper into letting you stay here, you can't live here forever."

"I mean, I probably could," Maour countered idly. "Free fish in the ocean, a source of fire that doesn't need wood, plenty of water to distill and then drink… I could manage. I don't have to, but I could." To be honest, distilling enough fresh water to live off of without running Toothless ragged or importing wood might be a pretty difficult problem, but he could figure it out.

"But you won't." Snotlout stood, grunting as he lifted himself from the log. "Traitor."

"Have you gained weight?" Maour asked innocently. "If someone told you to 'be the bigger man,' they didn't mean literally."

"What? Shut up," Snotlout said angrily, his hand going to the sword at his waist. "I'll teach you to mouth off."

"And here I thought it would be the crazy people getting themselves killed tonight," Camicazi interrupted, leering at Snotlout. "Prove just how bone-headed you are, Snotlout, and draw that sword. If, of course, _someone _cunning and talented has not replaced it with a false hilt in your scabbard." She smiled smugly, looking at his sheath.

Snotlout's jaw dropped as he pulled at his sword only to find exactly what Camicazi had told him would be there, a hilt with no blade. "I… give it back!"

"Treaty-breakers don't get returns," Bertha said sternly, favoring the Chief of Berk with a heavy, foreboding glare. "You and your insane right hand woman tried to kidnap my daughter. We'll 'kidnap' everything of yours we get our hands on, and you're not getting any of it back."

"The penalty for being caught thieving is being taken offshore and flogged," Snotlout threatened.

Bertha and Camicazi both smiled widely. "As if a Bog Burglar would ever be caught," Camicazi crowed. "Guard your valuables, Snotty, it won't matter. You would have done better to not bring anything."

"Whatever." Snotlout shrugged, feigning nonchalance. "We'll just get it all back once we burn your island to the ground."

"Is that a threat from the Chief of Berk?" Bertha asked coldly.

"Maybe." Snotlout turned his back on them, and began making his way down the island. "See you tomorrow, traitors and thieves!"

'Would pushing him count as violence?' Toothless asked speculatively, walking over to the edge of the summit to watch Snotlout go, a dangerous gleam in his eye.

"Definitely, if he fell all the way down," Maour reasoned. "Don't try it."

"Try what? Stealing from him? Because I'm going to steal that scabbard tonight, and take my fake hilt back too." Camicazi crossed her arms. "Don't try to stop me."

"I'll wish you luck, but isn't taunting Berk a bad idea?" Maour asked skeptically. "You might have my aid, but it's not smart to invite war." He didn't want to be dragged out to defend the Bog Burglars because Camicazi damaged Snotlout's pride beyond repair.

"They already declared war by kidnapping our heir; they just haven't made if official yet," Bertha explained. "And they won't if they know they can't win, so tomorrow we both need to scout out the tribes I mentioned."

"The Waxears and Meatheads, right?" Maour asked, just to be sure he knew what Bertha thought he would be doing.

"You do them; I'll see if I can get Sigvard on board," Bertha agreed. "He'll be a tough sell, but his tribe can supply the rest of us even if they don't have much of a military, so it's worth a shot. And we're just feeling them out tomorrow; the actual negotiations come tomorrow night."

"Right." Maour looked to Toothless. "I did all the talking tonight. How about I stick to translating for you tomorrow?"

Toothless stared at him as if he had lost his mind. 'They'd never believe you aren't just making my words up, and I don't know normal Vikings well at all. Besides, if I'm talking I can't be watching our backs. You talk, I'll guard and look intimidating or harmless as needed. If we ever go to a meeting of dragons, we can switch roles.'

"Wouldn't that be something to see," Maour agreed, thinking of a meeting of different kinds of dragons, like tribes. The Berserkers would be Skrill, Berk… Changewings, maybe, because he had only ever met one Changewing, and it had tried to kill him...

"I still hate only hearing one half of the conversation," Camicazi complained. "I'm leaving. See you two tomorrow."

Maour nodded absently, still thinking of the 'tribes as dragon species' comparison. That was a fun line of thought; maybe he and Toothless could make a game of it to fill some hours of flight time later, when they went home.

'Maour, we are the only ones up here. Let's go to a good, distant sea stack.' Toothless shook himself out, flapping his wings experimentally. 'My wings are cramped from sitting still so long.'

"Right," Maour agreed, getting into the saddle. "A very distant one." He looked up at the sky, noting the lack of clouds. "And circle around, so the Berserker ships don't see us leaving."

'Maour?'

"Yes?" Maour wasn't sure why they weren't leaving yet.

'Use my sight, and tell me what I am looking at,' Toothless requested. 'Because I really hope I'm seeing things.'

Maour did as told, and groaned as what Toothless meant became apparent. "Great. Just great." As if things were not dicey and complicated enough as they were.

_**Author's Note: **_**I'm not going to say it straight-out; it's far too obvious already. On a totally unrelated note, we're switching over to Heather and her not-so-merry band of assassins next week, so be prepared to go back in time a few weeks. (And this chapter is also not beta-proofed yet, so there is also that. Seems my beta is also on vacation; fine by me.)**


	20. Chapter 20

**_Author's Note:_**** And now, after four chapters of talking and negotiating, some action! This little arc is going to move a lot faster than what we just left because it's already in progress and nearing a turning point, so brace yourselves. **

'Where do we start?' Einfari was sitting on a boulder, overlooking Berserker island from the top of its singular mountain, staring down at the village in the distance. 'There are a lot of humans down there.'

"We need to catch Dagur alone, or on an undefended ship. Then we can just blast him out of existence, or sink him and then blast him if he survives that." Heather was crouched next to her, using her friend's superior eyesight to examine the sprawling village.

Nóttreiði growled from his position slightly higher up on another rock. He insisted on watching Einfari's back, despite the other side of the mountain being untouched forest, far sparser than that of their home island. Nothing could approach unseen in those woods, and nothing could climb up to them, but he watched for danger anyway. 'Maybe lure him out somehow. give him a reason to go somewhere isolated.'

Was Nóttreiði, of all dragons, offering a suggestion in response to her? Heather smiled to herself and said nothing about it. Pointing it out would just remind him that he was supposed to hate her. If planning to kill someone distracted him enough to make him forget that, she'd let him be distracted.

"The problem is, we need to know what his routine is if he even has one," Heather agreed, getting back to the question at hand. "But I can't just go down there and find out because every Berserker soldier I've ever run into has recognized me on sight. We have to assume they all will."

'How, though?' Einfari asked curiously. 'He wasn't even entirely sure at first.'

"They're Berserkers; they probably grab every girl who matches my description." Heather didn't know why Dagur's men seemed to have a better idea of what she looked like than he did, but she wasn't about to question it.

Einfari shrugged her wings. 'Then we wait and watch. He's got very distinctive red hair and doesn't wear a helmet. He should be easy enough to track from up here. A little red dot in a sea of brown, grey, and yellow.'

'So we don't get to do anything yet?' Nóttreiði didn't sound pleased with that idea. 'Fine. But what if he never goes anywhere unprotected?'

Heather smiled dangerously. "Then we lure him out, as you suggested."

'Good.' Nóttreiði jumped off of his higher rock and headed out into the forest. He was probably going somewhere out of sight to relieve himself, or maybe to make sure they really were alone. His paranioa was mostly warranted for once, and directed somewhere other than Heather. That made Berserker island one of the more relaxing places Heather had been recently.

'He is so preoccupied with how much danger we might be in that he barely notices what you are,' Einfari purred. 'This is progress.'

"It's only progress if he stays like this after we're done here." Somehow, Heather doubted that. Once Dagur was out of the picture and they weren't in enemy territory, Nóttreiði would probably go right back to focusing entirely on her. "For now though, it's nice." They could concentrate on Dagur, and Dagur alone.

* * *

'Dagur certainly is energetic.' Einfari sounded impressed in spite of herself. 'He hasn't stopped moving all day. Like a hyperactive fledgling.'

Heather had to agree. They had been watching Dagur for most of the day, spying from the heights. Dagur had been all over the village in that time. The little red dot had gone from the docks to the armory, the apparently empty arena, and everywhere in between, with no apparent pattern. Never alone and never still, Dagur definitely seemed to be planning or preparing for something. Unless this was normal for him, which was definitely a possibility.

'He is always guarded and almost never alone.' Nóttreiði growled angrily. 'Not once this entire day.'

"So much for catching him alone." After a single day, Heather was convinced they'd need to hit him on the sea, or not at all. There was just no way to get a clean shot at him, even if she was willing to endanger random, likely innocent civilians in the process. At least attacking a warship would only kill soldiers, and would also limit the number of soldiers involved at all.

'So we lure him out. But how? We need to give him something to go after.' Einfari closed her eyes in order to concentrate.

Nóttreiði purred, a deep and unusual sound coming from him. 'Easy. He hunts dragons for fun, murderous scum that he is. And we just happen to be the rarest of all dragons.' He explained his plan. After a long discussion and a few tweaks, Einfari and Heather reluctantly agreed. They'd lure Dagur out, using his own paranoia and dragon hunting tendencies against him.

* * *

Einfari flew silently, mindful of even the sound of her wings beating. She didn't want to make a single mistake. She spoke to Heather, who was tense in the saddle, gripping her ax. 'Relax. This part's on us. Keep watch for anything I might miss, and we'll be fine.'

She felt Heather pat her neck, the non-verbal signal they had agreed meant she understood. Silence was crucial. They needed to be unnoticed until exactly the right moment.

Einfari angled down, and knew that Nóttreiði would be right behind her. He might be stubborn and frustratingly hateful towards Heather, but he was not stupid enough to go against the plan they had decided on, especially when said plan was mostly his idea. She glided through the clouds and towards the target. A moderately small patrol boat, doing its best to circle the island.

They had noticed this particular idiosyncrasy of Dagur earlier. He was paranoid, and this nearly worthless single patrol ship was clearly a result of that trait. It would likely never detect an invading force in time to do any good, but it was there nonetheless. She guessed that there might normally be more, but the fact that the bulk of Dagur's armada was still in the South probably attributed for the lone ship here right now.

At the moment, the ship was around the back of the island, and the furthest from land that it would get in its circuit. Einfari glided closer and closer, having swooped down as low as she dared. She approached the vessel and circled it once, silent on the night air.

Worryingly, the ship actually seemed to be well-armed, if the number of metal things lining the sides of the deck were any indication. That could have been a problem. She and her brother were not skilled fighters and had no experience against human weapons like that. They could not risk attacking the ship head-on, even if a more experienced Night Fury would be able to do it with no issues. The same danger that had stopped them from going after Dagur after the disasterous attempt at negotiation would also stop them here, were they to need to attack directly. Luckily, the plan didn't call for that.

Einfari inhaled deeply and roared the distinctive roar of a Night Fury, as loud as she could. After a moment, she broke her silent glide and flew away, as fast as possible, being sure to silhouette herself against the stars as she did. She was rewarded with the muffled screams of 'Night Fury!' as she flew away.

Nóttreiði caught up to her and chuckled. 'Phase one, success.' He seemed to be enjoying this.

'I like phase one,' Einfari admitted. 'Can we just keep doing that?' It would work, if more slowly than the complete plan, and she had her doubts about phase two.

'No. If this doesn't work, we'll move on to the second part of this.' Nóttreiði flew away before she could respond. She felt a flash of irritation. If he thought he was getting out of talking about this, he was wrong.

But she let him have his silence for the moment, dropping behind on the way back to the mountaintop they had claimed for themselves. 'Heather, you are really fine with phase two?' Best to be sure she would not be opposing both of them before making her opinion known.

"It's violent and bloody, satisfying Nóttreiði and baiting Dagur at the same time. It seems like a good idea to me. That ship had half a dozen men on it. If he can do it, I say go for it." Heather's voice was dark.

So she would be opposing Nóttreiði without Heather's full support. 'But the first part of the plan could work on its own.' Repeated buzzings of the same ship, night after night, would definitely tempt the crazed dragon killer out onto that ship in hopes of encountering the lone, angered Night Fury.

"It could, but Nóttreiði wants to do both parts." Heather scratched the back of Einfari's neck consolingly as they landed. "If you can talk him out of it, go ahead, but we may as well use what we have."

'I am going to try.' As long as Heather was remaining neutral, she had a chance. 'You get some sleep. I want to talk to him alone.'

"Really alone?" Heather whispered, outwardly nodding and faking a yawn. She need not have bothered; Nóttreiði was surveying the dark forest below them, not watching her.

'It does not matter.' Einfari had no problem keeping Heather in the know about her dealings with her brother; there was no real reason not to. Heather was already privy to the inner workings of the Nótt family, so Einfari felt no need to keep anything from her.

"I think I'll leave you two to it," Heather decided. "Don't be long. You need rest too, at some point."

At some point. Somebody needed to watch for danger tonight, and if she couldn't sway Nóttreiði from the current plan, he would need rest the most between the two of them.

If she could not. She was going to do her best. 'Nóttreiði,' she called out. 'I am coming up there.'

'I am not ready to sleep yet; I'll just keep watch.' He shifted to let her up beside him. 'Really. Go.'

'Nervous about tomorrow night?' She could hope. She didn't want to believe her brother could really do what he was planning, not without some nerves and mixed feelings. He wasn't a kiler, no matter how blind he was.

'Nervous? I am ready, and even looking forward to it.'

She whined softly. 'You are looking forward to dropping onto their ship and killing them.' This was not him, it couldn't be, but he was so sure he wanted to do that, and she didn't know how to dissuade him.

'It needs to be done, it can be done, and I want to do it. Yes, I'm looking forward to it.'

'And are you looking forward to telling Mother and Father about it?' She didn't know if that was going to make any difference, but she figured she would bring it up. 'Heather and I are condoning it, but what do you think they will say?' She would take back her acceptance of his plan if she thought it would stop him, but there was a delicate balance between trying to help her brother and condemning him, and something told her she needed to tread carefully there.

'What will they say? They will…' He growled angrily. 'They will lecture me on acting childish, and Father will implore me to open my eyes. Mother will give me sad stares for at least a week. It is not easy, being the only one in this family with any sense. I miss the days when we were all in agreement.'

'I miss them too,' she admitted quietly. 'But I'm not the one making it so that we do not have that anymore. You are.'

'You are all deceived,' Nóttreiði said stubbornly. 'The humans who live on our island are very, very good at it. I just have to wait for you to see the truth.'

'Which is more likely?' Einfari asked slowly, trying a new angle. 'There are four of us if we do not count Joy, who is too young to really weigh in on this. You, me, Mother, and Father. We are all intelligent, perceptive, and cynical. Yes?'

'Yes.' No hesitation at all. 'We are Nótts.'

'So, again, which is more likely? Three of us are all tricked, or one of us is too paranoid?' She poked at his side with a paw. 'The truth. In a hypothetical, which would you expect to happen?'

'There is no such thing as too paranoid.'

'Father once drove himself to exhaustion through paranoia, for absolutely nothing. Whether or not you believe he was right to be suspicious, you must agree he went overboard. So there is such a thing as being too paranoid.'

'What is likely does not matter; what matters is what is. You are all deceived.' He turned away from her. 'I am going to go get some sleep after all.'

'Brother…' She could not dissuade him. He just wasn't listening. 'I don't want you to do this. It's risky and unnecessary.'

'I don't care. I want to do it.' He glared down at the village. 'I came on this trip to protect you and kill humans. I've failed several times at one of those; I'll not fail at the other.'

If she could not stop him… she didn't believe he would fail. What she feared was what success would do to him. 'If you do this, there is no taking it back. All of this has been talk, so far.'

'Now I am going to put my claws where my words are,' he agreed. 'I know I am right.'

'And when you find out you were wrong, you will realize that this was all avoidable,' she whined. 'It will crush you. I know you; the guilt will be terrible. The guilt you're building up and ignoring, so sure it will go away, so sure everyone else you know is wrong.'

'There is no guilt.' He sounded less certain now, but no less determined.

'I hope there is,' she countered. 'Somewhere, hidden, repressed, but still there. Because if there really isn't, I don't know who you are.' If he could kill and be totally okay with it, he was not the person she thought she knew. Her mother and father could not do that. She most definitely could not do it, though she had killed recently. That was how she knew.

'Brother,' she said urgently, 'when it all comes crashing down, and I hope it does, for your sake… I'm still here.' She moved forward and rested her chin on his neck, embracing him. 'I'm still going to be your sister.'

'I know that,' he asserted, moving away from her. 'Why would you not be?'

'Remember.' She favored him with a sad look. Were the circumstances different, she would chastise him for taking her for granted, but that terrible anticipation in her chest was telling her that she needed to be sure he survived his built-up delusion collapsing on him, and that meant making sure he knew he had not lost absolutely everything, not threatening him with losing more.

If it crashed. She hoped it did. It had better, because the higher his mental blockade against seeing the truth got, the worse he became, and she couldn't break through it. Nobody else could. He would have to break it down himself, somehow.

Nóttreiði jumped down to find somewhere else to sleep, and Einfari set herself to the task of watching over both him and Heather, and hoping that something would change for the better soon.

* * *

"Well, looks like it wasn't enough." Heather wasn't that disappointed; the hope that Dagur would immediately take the bait had always been far-fetched. The patrol boat had just set off, and Dagur definitely wasn't on it. She could see his red head moving in between the docks and armory for what had to be the tenth time today. They had spent the entire day watching him, and he definitely had no pattern at all.

Nóttreiði growled. 'I figured. Time for phase two.'

Heather shared a look with Einfari, and Einfari shook her head sadly. So it seemed she had not managed to convince Nóttreiði to drop that part of all of this. Oh well. He was set on killing humans, and they might as well point him at ones that deserved it.

* * *

A few hours later, Heather and Einfari watched as Nóttreiði silently dove towards the ship, just as Einfari had done the night before. They were fairly far away, in order to not be seen. Tales of two Night Furies would be too suspicious. They wanted this to look like the work of a lone dragon, angry and vulnerable.

Nóttreiði swooped directly over the ship. On his second pass, he abruptly folded his wings and dropped like a rock, intentionally slamming into one of the two net-launchers on either side of the ship. He trashed it with his weight as he landed, and immediately spun, roaring full in the face of the half-dozen armed crew and immediately attacked the closest one.

His fighting was actually fairly inefficient, and he didn't really seem to know what he was doing, but what he lacked in tactics and experience he made up for in ferocity. He hit each Berserker hard and fast, often flinging himself into them before they could react. Night Furies were built for fast and brutal combat. There were quickly far fewer Berserkers than there had been before. Everything was going according to plan.

Heather felt little to no satisfaction from watching Nóttreiði tear into her enemies. They were dying, but they weren't the real problem, just the minions, and Nóttreiði was not going to improve as a result of this event. They shouldn't have let him do this… but Einfari couldn't convince him not to, and Heather knew very well that she would have done no better.

This was in the cards since the moment Nóttreiði joined them on their mission. Now it was happening, and there was nothing they could have done to stop it.

Einfari keened softly. 'I don't know who he is now,' she whined. 'And we let him do this. We let him come along.'

They could not have stopped him. Heather wanted to say that, but it felt false and hollow. This did feel like a failure of sorts, though Nóttreiði was definitely succeeding in his attack. He had not even been scratched yet.

At that moment, Nóttreiði pinned the final Berserker of the half-dozen who had been on deck. He looked into the man's eyes... but something he saw there made him pause. He glanced up at the carnage he had created, hesitated… and then backed away, letting the man up.

Einfari gasped quietly. Heather could hardly believe what she was seeing through Einfari's eyes. What was going through Nóttreiði's head right now? He was showing mercy. Why?

Then everything went wrong. Several more Berserkers exploded out from hatches in the deck, and one of them knocked Nóttreiði unconscious, striking him from behind. Einfari immediately dived at the ship, snarling angrily.

"Einfari, not yet! They have crossbows!" Heather hoped Einfari could hear her. "They aren't killing him!"

It was true. The newest Berserkers were evenly divided between restraining an unconscious Nóttreiði and looking to the skies, armed with crossbows. They clearly weren't taking any chances. It had all happened so quickly.

Einfari pulled out of her dive and circled back around. 'We need to get him out!' Her voice was frantic.

"I agree, but they'll shoot us down. Wait until they've lowered their guard a little." This was pretty much the second-worst case scenario. The only way it could have gone worse was if the Berserkers had killed Nóttreiði. Thankfully, they had settled for taking him alive. Just like they wanted to do with Heather. Taken alive, and turned over to Dagur. Another fate she wouldn't wish on anyone.

With a sickening pang of intuition, Heather knew what Dagur would do if he had Nóttreiði. He'd try to break him like he assumed Maour had done with the dragon he rode. Given enough time, he might even succeed. That was a horrific image. Dagur riding Nóttreiði.

They circled the ship in wide circuits, watching as Nóttreiði was tied down to the deck with dozens of ropes, and waiting as the Berserkers took turns cleaning up the carnage Nóttreiði had wrought. The crossbowmen never let up their searching of the skies while all this went on.

After two hours, Einfari was close to panicking. 'What do we do if they never drop their guard?!'

Heather considered that. "We'll wait another hour. If they still haven't let up, you can blast the crossbowmen, and drop me on the ship. I'll cut Nóttreiði free while you distract them." It was not a good plan, but it was the best Heather could come up with. But they would wait another hour first, ready to pounce if the crossbowmen lowered their guard at all.

* * *

There was a story his father had once told him. Not the big one, not the one about past pain, humans, and their evils. A less realistic story, one about two dragons who could not get along. He could not recall most of it, and he knew it had been made up on the spot.

The general idea, however, remained, lost in his mind but not forgotten. The larger dragon had tormented the smaller, and generally made his life miserable. But when the smaller dragon by chance discovered a major weakness on the larger, he had taken the opportunity to do exactly what the larger had, returning the abuse a hundred times over.

Neither dragon had been depicted as a good person. And when both had perished in an attack by humans, neither was mourned by the nest they had resided in. It was a convoluted and slightly disturbing story, one that managed to impart two lessons. The obvious one was that humans were bad; they were depicted as a terrible force of nature to be fled from and reviled.

The less obvious lesson, the one Nóttreiði was now for some reason remembering, was that opposing evil did not make one good by default. Bad people could fight each other. The moment the smaller dragon moved from taking revenge to tormenting the larger for his own sake, he became bad, and stayed that way until he died.

Why was he remembering that now? He wasn't sure. His eyes weren't working, and neither were his ears. A faint ringing was all he could hear, and the world around him was a dark brown wash of blurred colors. His wing shoulder hurt, but that was a constant now, as it had hurt ever since being dislocated. He also had a headache. Probably from being struck on the head.

Struck on the head… ambushed… not yet off of the ship… because he had paused in his assault. Because…

Because, he remembered vividly, he had at that moment become become just as bad as the enemy he was destroying. Attacking without warning, killing, targeting humans who were, while by no means harmless, not expecting or particularly deserving his assault. There were no innocent parties here, but that did not make what he had done any better in his eyes.

He was the small dragon in his father's story, striking and becoming just as bad as that which he hated. The line had been crossed. There was no going back.

Something heavy and dense hit him in the side. He flinched away, or tried to. There were lines of pressure all over his body, holding him completely still. From his tail to his head, and everywhere in between, sturdy bonds held him down to the deck.

Time passed. His senses slowly returned, and he could hear the Berserkers talking softly. The air smelled of blood and seawater. More seawater than blood, now. They must be cleaning up after him. The thought made him feel sick. But he couldn't even open his mouth to gag.

Where was Einfari? Probably gone, by now. She had warned him, over and over, at first subtly but lately bluntly, about this. Not about being wrong; he wasn't wrong…

Or maybe he was? He didn't want to think about that. She had warned him about being wrong, and about regretting his actions later. But now he was past the point of no return. She should just leave him to die here, like in the story. Let the humans take care of the evil by doing what they did best.

Or, maybe she had swooped in and gotten killed or captured while he was senseless. It was possible. He didn't know.

That thought gave him the will to force his eyes open, to look and hope he was alone in his predicament, to hope she was long gone, ideally after flipping and throwing off the treacherous scum riding her-

Was he sure? She had been right about him regretting this, maybe…

No. He was going to die in a few minutes anyway. He just hoped she was not here.

The colors his eyes registered slowly grew sharper and defined, as sight returned. It brought a splitting headache, but the pain was nothing compared to his relief. He was alone on the deck. Einfari was nowhere in sight.

Alone, aside from the humans scattered across the deck. Most were watching the sky, and a few were tending to the human he had let live.

One, in particular, caught his eye, because it was staring right back at him. He was no judge of human emotion or expression, but he would label that sneer as cruel or angry.

Angry, probably. Here they were, two equally horrible creatures. He did not want to have anything in common with humans, but now he did. He was just as bad as they were.

The human he was staring at slowly walked up to him, its obscured paws thumping to a stop by his head. Then it kicked him, and he saw stars. It said something, but he did not understand. Any of the other Night Furies he knew would have, but he and he alone of the pack had managed to stay so isolated from Maour and the others as to not have picked their language up in passing yet, something he had been proud of. Too late now. Far too late, and it would make no difference.

A high-pitched call came from his other side, a place he couldn't see. The human in front of him responded at length, before drawing something from the wrappings lining its body, a grey metal spike. This was the end, then. At least he would die before seeing the look of disappointment, or worse still, fear, on his sister's face. He didn't want to die, but it woud be better than knowing for sure that she was afraid of him, or even just so very disappointed. He should have known better; she had warned him.

The human knelt by his head and said something else in a low tone. Not being able to understand was a mercy, of sorts, as he doubted he wanted to know what it had to say to him before killing him.

The human carefully shifted a rope, exposing the side of Nóttreiði's head, just in front of the left ear. The tip of the metal spike, the false claw, was pushed at his head.

The human slowly, deliberately carved four agonizingly long gashes into the soft scales and skin, and then a long horizontal stripe across them, muttering a single statement as it did.

Nóttreiði couldn't howl in pain, though it was excruciating. The ropes were too tight. His pained whine, however, was clearly audible across the entire ship. The other humans turned to look at him, even the ones watching the skies. One called out curiously, and the one who had hurt him sneered a long reply, before kicking him right on the new wound.

That hurt just as much as receiving the gashes had; he whined again, louder. They should just put him out of his misery, but of course they'd draw it out. All he had believed about humans was true, even now. They were cruel and horrible, and they showed no signs of actually intending to kill him.

No, they wouldn't kill him. They would keep him captive, like they had his father, and he would meet some terrible fate. Death by forced combat, torture, being force to breed with other dragons? He knew all too well what humans were capable of.

A large impact on the side he could not see rocked the ship. The telltale building sound of a large shot gave him just enough warning to reflexively close his eyes before a massive blast rocked the side of the ship in front of him.

When Nóttreiði opened his eyes, most of the humans were simply not there. A few may have been thrown off of the ship, and there were a few who had dived for cover and escaped the worst of the blast lying around, dead from the shrapnel or the impact. All was still, save for the few flickering flames on the deck. Einfari stood in front of him, crouching with her back to him, growling dangerously. Heather was on her back, also staring out at the destruction.

After a moment, Heather slid off of Einfari and picked up a discarded weapon, hoisting it in a way Nóttreiði could only identify as defensive, while Einfari turned and looked at him.

Nóttreiði could feel the blood dripping from his new wounds, but that wasn't important. He avoided meeting his sister's eyes, too afraid of what he might see, desperately looking anywhere else as she quickly rushed to his side.

'Nóttreiði, hang on, we're going to get you out of here.' Einfari began flaming the ropes, having apparently deemed that more efficient than trying to cut them with her claws.

At that moment, Nóttreiði saw movement behind Einfari. He saw, helpless to do anything about it, the human who had cut him, wounded and bleeding out but alive, pick up up one of the wooden and metal contraptions he knew to be weapons, and aim it at Einfari's head.

Then a familiar metal weapon impaled the human, stabbing into the wood behind him after passing right through his throat. Nóttreiði involuntarily exhaled in relief.

Heather strode up to the now definitely dead body and put her hand on the hilt of the weapon, before apparently thinking better of it. As Einfari burned away the flammable bonds holding him down, Heather checked the other bodies on the deck.

'Nóttreiði, did I miss any?' Einfari asked frantically. 'Can you move now?'

Could he? Yes. Did he want to? No.

Would she give up and leave if he refused to move? Also no. So if he wanted to avoid looking into her eyes a little while longer, he had to move.

He slowly rose to his feet, keeping his eyes downcast. There was no more danger, but the damage had been done. He had crossed a line.

'Nóttreiði?' Einfari warbled uncertainly. She sounded so concerned. Didn't she know what he had done? Surely she had been watching.

'I can move,' he admitted, standing stiffly. His head was ringing and throbbing at the same time, and his wing shoulder still ached, but he could stand and even fly if needed.

'Then let's go.' Einfari turned to Heather. 'Heather, come on. Also, what is that?'

Heather was holding a harmless-looking bundle and stick, staring at them thoughtfully. She turned and said something to Einfari.

'That could be useful; bring it,' Einfari agreed, letting Heather onto her back. 'Come on, Nóttreiði, let's get off of this rickety piece of wood before it sinks, or Dagur sends another ship to investigate.'

Nóttreiði followed numbly, his head ringing too much to allow him to think beyond the moment. He was able to trail Einfari by doing what she did, but only barely; something was wrong.

'Over here will do,' Einfari hurriedly chirped, directing him to a nearby sea stack. 'Come on, land here.'

He did as told, almost overshooting thanks to the hazy pain in his head, his eyes both blurry and watery. It was curiously like being blind, but he was in too much pain, both mental and physical, to care.

Heather said something, her voice concerned. He knew her emotions; watching secretly to detect treachery had taught him about her, if not about her kind in general.

'A head injury.' Einfari nosed at the bloody wounds. 'I can't even see what's under all of this blood. We need to staunch the flow, somehow.' She pressed her tongue to his wound, and he flinched back, feeling oddly uncoordinated. The side of his head hit stone, somehow, despite the sea stack being flat and wide. Things began to spin in front of him, and he closed his eyes…

'No, don't sleep, sleeping with head injuries is bad,' Einfari whined. 'Stay awake.'

He almost wanted to sleep anyway, even if it would hurt him more in the long run, but he had disappointed her so much already. 'I'll… stay awake.'

'Good. Heather, do we have any rags in my saddlebags? He's not bleeding so much now, but we need to get the wound cleaned. I saw some idiot kicking him there, so there's probably dirt in it, and my tongue will hurt more than your hands with a rag.'

Having a human clean his injury? He laughed, a ragged and pained sound not at all like he had intended. Sure, why not? Now would be the perfect time for it to betray him, but it didn't matter anymore. He would bite its head off the moment it came close, and in that way stop it from ever betraying his sister. He was bad to the core anyway, so it was not like he had anything to lose.

'No, never mind.' Einfari leaned in, looking directly into his eyes. 'Later. Brother, something more is wrong. Do you know where you are?'

'Far from home,' he answered slowly. His memory was not in question; if anything, he would prefer to not remember who he was, and how badly he had failed, how far he had fallen. 'Enemy territory.'

'Yes. Do you know who you are?'

'A monster,' he admitted quietly, not able to stop himself. 'I wasn't before, but I am now. I am just as bad as them. Not fit to be a Nótt… not fit to be your brother…'

Einfari stiffened, before leaning in and almost smothering him, carefully avoiding his wound by pressing against him as much as she could manage at the same time. 'No, no, you just made a mistake. Remember what I told you last night? Repeat it to me.'

Did he remember? He thought back, taking far too long to dig up what she meant, her painfully accurate prediction… and her promise.

'I'm still here,' he repeated slowly. 'I'm still going to be your sister. You said that then, but this is now.'

'And it's no less true now,' she murmured. 'Come on, I saw this coming. It was going to happen. I'm just glad it did, instead of you getting worse and worse until we lost you for real.'

'I still think humans are evil,' he revealed, wanting to explain why she could not possibly still think he was worth caring about. 'I am just as bad, now.'

'Shut up; you're not thinking straight.' She made to bat at his head before thinking better of it. 'And I suppose I should be glad about that. You'd never tell me this kind of thing if you were.'

'I'd tell you anything…' He was losing his grip on reality again, the pain making it hard to think. 'I want to protect you… to protect Joy… But I can't now; I'm not-'

'You are a stubborn person who made a big mistake,' she cut in. 'I'm not saying it was right, or not a big deal. It was big and horrible, and I'm at fault too, for not stopping you. But now you have a choice. Move on, or wallow in it until you die or do something worse.'

'I…' Oblivion was coming for him now, and he couldn't stop it, but he knew he would wake, and he would hurt. He would hate himself for what he had done. 'Thank you.'

'For what?'

'Caring.' He let his eyes close.

**_Author's Note:_**** This chapter represents a major crossroads in the story. Up until this point, Raethi's character could have gone any number of ways. One way has been chosen now, and the other paths are no longer possible. As to what way that is? Well, you'll have to wait and see. (Also, yes, I did just totally circumvent the whole 'captive Raethi or Einfari' idea, along with a host of other possibilities and tropes associated with it. We're not going that way right now; that's too easy.) **


	21. Chapter 21

His head hurt. His wing shoulder hurt. His heart hurt. One old injury and two new ones. One caused by neglect, and two by blind stupidity. The three wounds ached in synch, throbbing in perfect time.

Nóttreiði was awake. He had been for a while now. Einfari didn't know, because he was acting as if he was still asleep. She said she was still there for him, but he didn't deserve it.

Heather was there too, like it or not, because his sister wouldn't see the truth about humans. She didn't know he was awake either. How could she? If she so much as laid a slim paw on him, he would pull her in and rip her head off. Humans were bad, just like him, and he knew Heather had to be planning something.

The alternative was too horrible to contemplate. He didn't want to consider the possibility she was better than him. The possibility that Einfari, in picking Heather and keeping her around, had made a smart move. A smarter move than not disowning him and leaving him to rot like she really should.

'I don't know what to do,' Einfari whined softly, clearly not talking to him. She didn't seem comforted by whatever Heather said. 'Yes, he's injured, but I mean about everything else.'

He was causing her distress simply by being miserable. How ironic, that absolutely nothing he did was good for her, when all he wanted was for her to be safe and happy.

'Clean the wound. I think he would hurt you if you tried,' Einfari said sadly. 'But I can help with that, and you have fingers. You can actually clean the wound instead of licking it and doing no good.'

He was torn between wanting to pull back, away from the possibility of a human touching him, and wanting to remain 'asleep' so that Einfari wouldn't try to help him, wouldn't have to deal with him. Lethargy and a lingering headache won out, and he remained limp. He didn't even know how long it had been since receiving the injury; the time spent on this sea stack was both fleeting and vast. It could have been minutes or days, and he wouldn't know the difference. It didn't matter.

Einfari was over him, now, leaning across his wings and pinning them to his body. Her paws hooked around his and held them back, and her chin pressed his face into the stone, firmly forcing his mouth closed. She was restraining him. He knew what was coming.

And he really wanted to buck her… but doing so might hurt her. Which was more important? Hurting the human, or not hurting his sister? The latter won with no contest.

A wet, cold drop of water ran down the side of his face. He could feel a heat by his head, one only amplifying the pain from his open wound. Then cold seawater began running around the wound, not yet actually getting into it. Washing the blood away before tackling the actual injury.

Then it began to sting, salt in raw open flesh. He groaned and writhed, slapping his tail against the sea stack to distract himself. Forget trying to throw his sister off, he just wanted the pain to stop. It was never going to stop, and now his sister was helping a human hurt him further.

Agonizing jolts of fresh pain ran through him as whatever the human was using to apply water ran carefully over and finally inside each open cut. There was a huff that came from a small body; the human exclaiming over something.

'There was a small rock stuck in that one,' Einfari whined. 'From the kick, I think. It must have been on the human's paw before he hit you.'

Nóttreiði didn't care; he just wanted the pain to stop. He humiliated himself by whining softly after every small but sharp jolt.

'She's almost done,' his sister said soothingly. 'Almost. It looks much better now, much less serious. You will be okay.'

All that mattered to him was the promise of the human being done with him. He groaned softly as the human withdrew, taking its cold water and painful cleaning with it, and Einfari let up on pinning him to the ground.

Here was where he could strike. He could slide out from under her loosened grip and bite down, tearing the human into small parts-

-Just like he had one of the humans on the ship-

He lurched forward, but not to strike. To hang his head over the side of the sea stack and empty his stomach of any and everything that might have been in it. Humans were bad, but the very memory of what he had done was worse, far worse. That was what crossed the line. Striking to rend and tear, fighting to kill for no reason other than he wanted to. It didn't matter who he was attacking. What mattered was why, and how. With what attitude, and what strategy.

Mindless death and agony had been his strategy, and his attitude that of a monster. So he was one. The line had been crossed.

Einfari couldn't see it. He could; he needed to do what had to be done, to leave her. She wouldn't leave him. His family wouldn't leave him. But he didn't want them to know him like this, to see him and to know what he had done. So he had to go.

He flexed his wings under the guise of stretching and heaving forward to spit up more bile and tried to think. Where could he go? Straight forward and down? No, that was death, drowning in the ocean far from home. He did not want to die, he just wanted to crawl under some forgotten rock on some unknown island and never see anyone again. Never let them see what he had become.

But he couldn't; she would just follow him. So he pulled back and sprawled out on the sea stack, frustrated and nauseous, and so very, very ashamed of himself.

'Brother.' Einfari's voice was close. She was right beside him. 'Do you hurt anywhere else?'

How painfully ironic. She cared, and that hurt, because he knew his agony was distressing her. Better if she callously discarded him. 'No.'

'Are you sure?' She hummed calmly. 'Good. Then you can listen, and listen well. I know you.'

She thought she knew him. He hadn't known himself, hadn't known he was capable of being so horrible without even thinking it so. There was no way she knew him any better than that.

'And I know you're not in a good place.' She put a paw on his back, right at the base of his neck. 'You're not listening, and that's not okay. If you still love me as your sister, at all, then you need to listen, and listen carefully.'

He would. That plea had a pull to it that could not be refused. He loved his family, his sisters chief among them. They were his counterparts, his allies, his best friends, his only friends. His mother and father were above them, which separated them by the slimmest degree, but he was on equal footing with his sisters. They were as close as siblings could be… or they had been.

'Will you listen?' Einfari whined. 'Please?'

'Of course,' he huffed quietly.

'Thank you.' The paw was moving now, pushing the loose skin of his neck back and forth. It was not an unpleasant feeling, but he could not honestly say he liked it either. 'You've done a terrible thing.'

He whined, entirely agreeing with that. Here it came. She had seen the truth, or maybe just accepted it. This was her way of casting him aside.

'And I let you do it.' She growled angrily. 'I blame us both. And Heather, but this is not about her. We share the blame. So if you condemn yourself, you have to condemn me too.'

No, he didn't. She wasn't speaking sense.

She had told him to listen. He had agreed to do so. He would not throw aside what she was saying, no matter how much he wanted to.

'My fault. I was not down there with you, but I might as well have been.' A soft huff. 'But you know what I'm going to do? I am going to admit fault and move on. I want you to do the same.'

She moved away from him, her paw leaving his back. 'I allowed something terrible. I let my own brother attack humans for no reason other than he wanted to. It doesn't matter who they were, or whether or not the deserved to die, which they probably did. What matters is that _I did not stop it_. I knew it was bad for you, and I knew it was immoral.'

He turned, opening his eyes to see her hanging her head, looking out at the sea below them.

'I didn't do anything but talk. I wanted to stop you, but I wasn't strong enough.' She looked up, out at the island in the distance. 'I am at fault. That was a horrible thing, and I will not forget my part in it.'

She looked back at him. 'What about you?'

'I can never forget what I did,' he moaned.

'No, you cannot.' She nodded at him. 'That will scar. A reminder that will never go away.'

'I am a monster.'

'Only if I am. Call me one.' She walked over to him, her eyes stern. 'Try.'

He shook his head wildly. 'I cannot.'

'We are equally guilty. Do it. Or stop thinking of yourself as one.'

Her words made sense, but he did not see how she could mean them. 'I was the one doing the killing. I was the one…'

'What?' Her voice was apprehensive. 'Tell me the truth.'

'I did not enjoy it,' he admitted. 'Not at all. I enjoyed the feeling of actually doing something, of taking revenge, but once that wore off…'

'You hesitated.' Einfari purred loudly. 'See? A mistake, not who you are. You regret it?'

'Yes!'

'You won't do it again?'

'I cannot even think of doing that again.' He felt like trying once more to clear his stomach at the very memory of what he had done.

'So you are not a monster. Just a stubborn person who latched onto an idea and got more and more frustrated as time wore on.' She walked right up to him and pushed her nose into his chest as if seeking comfort. 'Tell me you're going to keep going. Promise me you'll do better.'

'I promise.' He still felt immensely guilty, but she was making sense, and he was listening now. Truly listening, not just dismissing her and everyone else as being wrong and blind. He was wrong, and he had been blind, not them.

And if he had been blind, if they were all right… then she was right about this too. He could keep moving. He was only a monster if he chose to be. Why had his father's story not taught that lesson instead?

Maybe his father didn't know it was a lesson that needed to be taught. Or maybe that past version of his father had not known. He might know now.

Nóttreiði leaned in, returning the gesture. 'Sorry. Sorry for not listening, sorry for being so stubborn and stupid, sorry for everything.'

'I forgive you.' She pulled back, staring into his eyes. 'This time. Don't do it again. You've learned the lesson, and failing to improve is much worse than failing to understand.'

There was the sister he knew. He grinned wryly, unable to stop himself. 'I'll try not to.'

'And you know…' Einfari shook her head slowly. 'No. Too much, too soon.'

He knew what she meant to say, the large issue in the air, the one that had originally set them at odds. Another thing he was wrong about.

But he still felt hate. It was a weaker, uncertain hate, but hate nonetheless. 'I still believe they are bad.'

'And so do I. But you must also believe they are not _all_ bad,' she commanded sternly. 'I am demanding it, as a condition of my forgiveness.'

'Give me time to adjust,' he requested plaintively. 'Father took years. I still do not truly believe it. You cannot expect me to change in a day.'

'No, but I can expect you to try.' She gestured to the water all around them. 'Now, food or sleep? I think your head is fine, given you've been able to have _this _conversation with no difficulty.'

'Sleep.' His stomach was still rolling and churning, empty but not settled. 'Again.'

'Take as much time as you need.' She gently pushed him down until he was lying on his side. 'And don't forget or go back on any of this. I'm not going to be happy if you need a second talk.'

'One is enough.' He would rather trust her than his own feelings, now, having seen how terribly his feelings could lead him astray. He really was going to try.

Sleep did not come easily, but it did come painlessly. His heart no longer hurt quite so badly.

* * *

Einfari sighed, almost collapsing where she stood. Nóttreiði was asleep again, finally.

Heather poked her head up above the edge of the sea stack. "Is it clear to come up?"

'You know he is asleep.' Einfari waved her over with her tail. 'Why ask me?'

Heather clambered up from the tiny secondary ledge she had been hiding on at Einfari's request, to give them some semblance of privacy. "I was just being sure."

'And I don't mind.' She was just glad all of that had worked. 'You were listening. What is your opinion?'

"I think you were brilliant." Heather paused for a moment. "But I have to ask. How much of that was real, and how much was just saying what he needed to hear?"

'About half and half, but it's not that simple,' Einfari explained honestly. 'What was real was that I wanted him to be able to move on and not hate himself, and that I love him. He's my brother, and he's more than capable of being a good person. But all that about taking the blame for myself? I made that up on the spot. The feeling, the intent, was real, but the wording was what he would need to hear. I think.' She wasn't one to mess with the mind and its afflictions, that was Maour, but she did know some little of how her brother thought.

'Basically,' she concluded, 'it doesn't matter how much of that was designed to make him feel better. I meant to do that, so I meant every word, and still mean every word.' Cynical but caring, when it came to family. That was what being a Nótt meant.

"Sounds like something I would do," Heather admitted. "What now? Dagur is still out there."

'I don't really want to keep chasing him. Nóttreiði needs a good example, and trying to kill a human right now isn't one. But,' she sighed, 'you deserve revenge. We will keep trying. Nóttreiði will not be participating in any kind of fighting.'

"Of course not." Heather glared out in the general direction of Berserker island. "As soon as Nóttreiði is well enough to fly, we will keep trying for Dagur." There was real hate in her voice.

'Yes. His men tortured my brother. Yet another reason to hate him.'

"You know, I think I know why they did what they did," Heather said slowly. "That mark on his head, it's familiar. It's a tally mark. Each line means one of something."

'There are five lines. He killed five men.' She saw the connection. 'Please, don't tell him what it means. He doesn't need that specific of a reminder. I think.' Maybe he _did _need to know. She was grasping at straws here, far out of her depth when it came to dealing with mental issues.

"You think?"

'I don't understand why he reacted like that. It's good, better than the alternative of not caring or enjoying the killing, but…' She was at a loss to explain any more than that. 'It just doesn't feel like that is how he would respond to all of this.'

"I mean, it makes sense to me," Heather countered. "He's like you. You didn't like killing that Skrill, but it needed to be done. This is just how someone like you would react to killing people for fun, and then realizing they were making a horrible mistake."

'You say people, but you heard him. He still hates humans, for some reason.' It was just her luck that the only thing her brother didn't change was his irrational hatred. On the other paw, he at least did not seem to hate humans any more vehemently than before, and had promised to try and change.

"Maybe this will be the push in the right direction that he needs." Heather reached down onto the ledge she had hidden on and pulled the long stick and cylindrical bag up. "Just to be safe, don't tell him what this is."

'A bow, you said. A weapon that throws sharp sticks a long distance.'

"I don't have my ax, and I need _something _in case we end up in a situation like that again. I figured range was a better idea." Heather strung a line across the stick, bending it a little, and drew another small stick from the bag, turning it over before putting it to the string. "Arrows are easy to come by, especially if we'll be taking on more Berserkers, but I'm not going to waste this one."

'How would you fire?' Maour had not made anything like this in the last five years, at least to her knowledge. She had not kept up with his creations, so it was possible she missed anything like this apparently common weapon.

"Pull back the cord and let go. Aiming is the real difficulty, and I can count the number of times I've used a bow on one hand. I won't be very good, but at least a bow will let me strike things out of my reach." Heather put the arrow back into the bag it came from, looking into it as she did. "And I've only got a dozen arrows, so right now this really is a last resort weapon."

'Better than not having a weapon at all.' And far better than having a weapon her brother would recognize as such. The stick and bundle didn't look at all menacing even now that she knew what it was, so Nóttreiði would never know what it was for until Heather had to use it… or told him.

That brought something else to mind. "Heather, we know we're going after Dagur once Nóttreiði is up for it. But do you know how we're going to get Nóttreiði to like you?'

Heather laughed sadly. "If I knew _that _I would have my ax with me right now because I would have done it long before this trip."

'I mean now that he has promised to try and get over his hate,' Einfari specified with a short growl. 'You knew that.'

"Yes, it just struck me as ironic." Heather grinned slyly. "I might have a few ideas, but we'll have to wait and see what he does."

* * *

Nóttreiði woke to the sound of laughter, a sound he had missed. His sister was laughing happily, and close by.

All that had been said and done was at the forefront of his mind, and while he felt a heavy guilt, he could bear it. Would bear it, for Einfari's sake.

There was foreign, human laughter too, but for Einfari's sake, he would try and tolerate that, too. How could he possibly put aside that hate? Even if it was wrong, it was basically a part of him.

It had been a part of Father, too, but was not anymore. Nóttreiði felt a fresh wave of guilt at that thought. He had ignored and scorned his father for the thing he now knew to be difficult but probably right, and his father had let him. So stupid, so disrespectful.

Another set of apologies to make, as little as he would enjoy doing so. In the Nótt family, when things went wrong, apologies were drawn-out, laborious affairs. What had he done wrong? How could he have avoided it? Did he know what the consequences were? A million probing questions designed to drive home exactly what lessons should be learned.

That was for minor offenses, like when Joy clawed at one of the Myrkurs for startling her and drew blood. Nóttreiði didn't even want to imagine how severe the interrogation would be for something like _this._

'I got you food to make up for what you lost,' Einfari called out, still giggling quietly. 'It's right next to your head.'

She wasn't kidding about how close it was. He swung his had around to try and locate the overpowering smell and smacked the uninjured side of his head right into the pile. Said pile disappeared, but he didn't even taste the fish in his haste.

'And now that you're up, come over here,' Einfari instructed, patting a spot on the other side of the sea stack with her tail. 'We need to discuss strategy. The two-step plan we went with before had… mixed results.'

'Are you still determined to do this?' he asked incredulously. His sister was usually far smarter than that. 'It's far too dangerous.'

'Not too dangerous for you to drop onto a ship and fight,' Einfari retorted, clearly using what she claimed as _their _mistake to support her argument, which was just like her. She would flaunt her own humiliation if it won her a debate.

'Clearly, as I did not win that fight,' he retorted uneasily, 'we misjudged the danger. Neither of us knows warfare, and we are aiming for the human who controls all the rest.'

'We need to do it better, obviously,' Einfari agreed. 'But at least let me tell you what's happened since the attack.'

'I'm all ears.' This, he could handle. Any memory of the attack still sickened him, but the rest was just strategy and planning. He enjoyed planning things with Einfari.

Not so much with the human, but he didn't see it. It had to be somewhere nearby, he had heard it, but not out in the open.

There was a suspiciously large bulge under one of Einfari's wings, which were partially spread and touching the stone to either side of her. 'What are you doing with your wings?'

'It is called stretching them,' Einfari blithely retorted. 'Try it sometime. Now, look out at that island and tell me what you do not see.'

He knew what she wanted to do, but for the moment there was no point in calling out her misdirection, so he answered the challenge. 'The ship I attacked.' A small flash of guilt that quickly subsided. 'It went back to the place it came from.'

'Another ship came and brought it back, but the same end result, so yes. And that was yesterday. This is the second morning since the attack.'

He had slept… well, the first time awake after was in the day, and he might have gone all the way through the night the second time. It was not so strange. 'We missed the chance.'

'There was no chance. No patrol ship went out last night,' Einfari explained. 'We misjudged. He's too paranoid to take the attack at face value. Even though Heather and I,' and she stressed their names as if to ensure he knew she was not speaking of his actions, 'left no survivors to tell what happened aside from "a Night Fury attacked." So I think his paranoia beat out his bloodlust.'

'No chance of luring him out, then.' It had all been for absolutely nothing. 'Why are you still contemplating this?'

'To tell you the "why" I first need to change the subject. You need to make amends.'

'For what? If there is still some harm done between us-'

'None,' she said lightly, cutting off his growing worry. 'But there is harm between you and Heather, and I am not about to let it linger now that I have your promise you'll try and improve.'

'Eventually,' he clarified, knowing she wasn't going to take no for an answer, not when he really had promised.

'Now is a great time to start.' She shot him a disapproving glare. 'Brother, if you're stubborn about this I'll stop playing nice.'

'Fine.' If this was playing nice, he didn't want to see anything else. 'What do you want me to say? Sorry for being properly worried about homicidal creatures killing my sister and betraying my people?'

'How about, sorry for holding my hate and not listening to my family. Sorry for completely ignoring you and acting like a total jerk.' Einfari stared angrily at him. 'You get to come up with the rest, but that's a good start.'

'Seriously?' He was struggling to not hate the human, let alone apologize. But his sister wanted him to, and he didn't have to _mean _it…

'Fine.' He stared deliberately at the lump under her wing. 'Am I going to be apologizing directly?'

'You might as well,' Einfari laughed and lifted her wing. Sure enough, the human was sitting beneath it, looking down at the water below them. It in the very least did not look smug, seeming more thoughtful than anything.

'I hate its kind,' he began truthfully.

'Not it, her,' Einfari interjected. 'You're speaking to her, not me. And she's a person, so talk about her like one.'

He didn't have to mean it. That was fast becoming his mantra today. 'I hate _your _kind, but I am assured you are different.'

The human spoke, its high-pitched voice grating on his ears.

'She says she also hates many of her kind,' Einfari relayed helpfully.

So what? He resolved to continue quickly enough that it wouldn't have a chance to comment any further. 'And I was sure you, along with your friends on my island, were no different. I am still sure, but smarter Nótts than me have been convinced you truly are as harmless as you claim.' Of all of his family, he was the only one who had done something so stupid and terrible as thinking he could kill for fun, so everyone else was smarter than him. He could easily admit that.

The human squeaked something else out, defying his intention of keeping her silent. 'She says she's not harmless. She killed to protect me, remember?'

'Fine. Non-aggressive,' Nóttreiði growled disagreeably. 'So I am sorry for holding my hate and not listening to my family. Sorry for completely ignoring you and acting like a total jerk. Not sorry for hating your kind, and definitely not sorry for suspecting you of being a horrible traitor.'

'You really do like pawing the line between cooperating and spiting me, don't you,' Einfari griped. 'That was no more an apology than growling at her would be.'

'I tried.'

'You didn't try; you're just saying what you think will get me off your back.'

The human spoke _again,_ as if trying to annoy him. 'She says not to press you on it, because you probably can't actually mean it since you don't think she's any better than the Berserkers,' Einfari reluctantly announced. 'Even though they gave you that terrible wound, and she cleaned it. They're about as different as can be, you know.'

'Different?' He laughed scornfully. 'Please. She's literally one of those same Berserkers. Just a smaller, weaker one.'

The human stood, clenching its small paws angrily, and yelled something at him. He growled right back at it. Good, maybe if he provoked it he could prove it really was bad. It would be the height of irony for him to be proven right just as he was beginning to believe otherwise.

'Take that back,' Einfari snarled. 'You hit a nerve, and believe me when I say you don't want to hear what she said in response.'

'Tell me, word for word,' he suggested coldly. 'I think I do want to hear.'

'You asked for it. She said, "you're just as bad by that measure. You're a dragon, and so was the Skrill that tried to kill your sister. And I didn't see you helping stop the Skrill, which is more than you can say about me."'

'It's going to die for that,' he growled, utterly enraged by the insinuation that he had _anything _in common with the miserable monstrosity that wanted his sister dead.

Einfari was in front of him in an instant, growing right back. 'You wouldn't be able to do it. And if you could, then I've misjudged, and you really are as bad as you were saying earlier.'

'Stop throwing that in my face,' he complained, feeling like a fledgling constantly being reminded he had soiled the cave. 'I am trying to do better.'

'No, you are _not._' Einfari sounded absolutely serious. 'Stop the death threats. Stop comparing her to the people who killed the ones she loved. And _stop_ acting like nothing has changed!'

'Nothing has changed!' he exclaimed, feeling like they were right back where they started, but angrier. 'It's still here! Still dangerous!'

'And _so are you_.' She took a step back, flaunting the fact that she was protecting the human. 'I'm starting to wonder whether I'm safe standing between my own brother and my friend.'

'I would never hurt you,' he whined, pained by the accusation.

'And neither would she. She has literally killed to protect me, and this isn't the first time I'm having to remind you of that. Right now, she couldn't kill me if I let her try. She has no claws, no teeth, nothing. Nothing that can be used against me.'

To illustrate her point, Einfari stuck her tail into the human's thin front paws, almost knocking it over. 'She can't hurt me right now. So stop acting like she's the most dangerous one here. Of the three of us, only one has killed for any reason other than necessity.'

The human murmured something short. Einfari blinked, obviously surprised, and tilted her head. 'Really? They're that fragile?'

'What?' Nóttreiði hated being left out of the loop when it concerned the human correcting Einfari about whether or not it had killed before.

'She says she killed a Berserker by accident once, while trying to escape the ship that brought her to our island, but that doesn't count. That was necessity.'

By accident. He couldn't even make himself continue that line of accusations, if an accident was the worst the human would claim. He had killed out of stupid rage and the belief that it would make him feel better. He was worse.

He was worse, and his sister was trusting him. He wanted nothing but her safety, and she knew that, but she was beginning to wonder whether he would hurt her…

He hated the human, but Einfari had stopped wondering whether _it _would hurt her long ago. She trusted it more than him right now, and that was a fact.

It had done more to earn her trust than he had. He took it for granted. The human worked for it.

How bad would he feel if he had to deal with an antagonistic human every day, one that openly despised him? Wanted him dead?

The human might be just as bad as him, but it could not possibly be worse, when it came to how they treated each other. And if it was just as bad, it was at least hiding that. He could not even hide it, which he really should be able to. He was a Nótt. Since when did that mean wearing his feelings on his back like any other dragon?

He had stopped acting like his father, his best role model, weeks ago. His father would have never taken this at face value, but also would not have just kept openly defying and antagonizing the human.

His father had, after being convinced the human meant no immediate harm, worked to regain its trust. Let it get close, and examined it. Nóttreiði didn't know what happened at the meetings his father and the first deceptive human had, but he knew how his father probably approached them. Let it get close, let it drop its guard, and see what the truth was.

He was a terrible Nótt. But if he was improving, he could improve that too. Starting with this moment and this argument.

'You're right,' he whined, lowering his head and drawing upon the real guilt he did feel to make his words sound realistically pained. It was not hard. 'I am the danger here. I am the antagonist, the provoker. I am sorry for that.'

A real Nótt would take this chance to get close to the human and see once and for all what it had in its heart. He would get close to it and wait for it to betray him, as he should have done from the very beginning, what Einfari had done. He would fake remorse.

And if it turned out Einfari was right, which he was now able to admit was a possibility? The faked remorse could become real, and nobody would ever know just how cynically he had began.

* * *

Had Nóttreiði really just said that and meant it? Heather didn't buy it. She was getting used to living among schemers and cynics, and taking this at face value might be fatal.

Einfari certainly believed, judging by her soft purr, but Heather didn't hold that against her best friend. It was her brother; she would want to believe the best of him.

Heather personally suspected Nóttreiði had just decided to stop openly defying her in favor of quietly waiting for her to show her 'true colors' and betray them.

She was fine with that, as her true colors were already on display, as black as Night Fury scales and grey like a Nótt's eyes. She wanted Dagur dead, her family avenged, and her friend safe. Nothing more, and certainly nothing any Berserker could offer. Nothing Nóttreiði could take as hostile.

So, she would play his game and wait for him to realize playing the game, for her, just meant being herself. "Tell him I said thank you for the apology, and that I am not blameless myself."

Einfari relayed that comment happily, though she seemed skeptical about the last part. Heather had added that more to console Nóttreiði than because she felt she shared the blame for their animosity. It was all on his side; she would be happy to add another Nótt to her list of friends if he would let her. That would make his father the only one she had yet to get close to.

And _that _promised to be a whole other task. Right now, she needed to focus on the two tasks at hand, not the one she had put on hold to come out here.

'Let us focus on our shared enemy, then,' he asserted awkwardly, turning to look out at Berserker island. 'And whether or not it is worth the risk of going after him.'

"It was worth the risk two days ago," Heather remarked, unwilling to let a suddenly reluctant Nóttreiði stop their mission. "Nothing has changed."

'We learned we are not as smart as we thought,' Einfari countered. 'We thought this was a relatively safe move. None of us can deny we were wrong, and woefully under-informed. We did not expect the ship to have more men below decks, and in retrospect, that should have been obvious.'

"I guess we're kind of lucky Dagur wasn't one of them." Heather wanted him dead, but if he had been on that ship, something told her all three of them would be dead of captive right now. "But we can be more careful. He needs to die."

'Heather, let me remind you of something that I believe slipped _all_ of our minds. We are not experienced.' Einfari warbled sadly. 'This is my first trip out into the world, and the same goes for my brother. All we know of warfare comes from our parents, and that is not enough. We do not know fighting, and we have repeatedly overestimated our capabilities. Next time might be fatal.'

'The human we are trying to kill, on the other paw,' Nóttreiði added, 'is a dragon-killer and a hunter, by what I have been told. One with an entire nest to command, and a mind that cannot easily be predicted. We are hunting out of our league.'

How had she become the one least confident in their capabilities so quickly? Maybe being a Nótt also meant admitting weakness. Wait, no, that was just a dragon trait in general, one she still wasn't used to. Freely admitting weakness and fault.

Regardless, she needed to get them to see that they could do this. "But we're learning. You're learning. And we have plenty of advantages Dagur can't predict or counter. This isn't a fair fight; it was never supposed to be. This is an assassination. We just have to catch him once, not beat him in some grand battle of wits."

'And if catching him turns out to be flying into a trap, we will die. We are not experienced enough to know what is really vulnerability and what is not.' Nóttreiði spoke plainly, not even arguing so much as explaining why they were done, in his opinion.

"He's not invincible, not invulnerable, not even all that clever," she retorted. "I evaded his men for months on end. Barely, but still. A smart person would have never gone after me with force in the first place. He values strength, not intelligence. We're more than capable of exploiting that, and again, we only need one win to end this."

'Heather, my brother is right, it's too dangerous. It was always too dangerous.' Einfari was sure, too.

Heather had to face the possibility that she might not win this argument. "Look… I need this to happen. Now more than ever. And if we go home now, we're not coming back out here any time soon. You know this is our only chance." The parent Nótts would make sure they didn't do this again. As it was, Heather was sure the punishment for lying and going after a maniac was going to be a severe one, especially now that Nóttreiði had gotten hurt in the process, and was only alive because the Berserkers had decided capturing him was worth the risk.

'It is, but we could spend months here waiting for a chance that does not exist. That is _if _we are so careful we do not fall for a false opportunity.'

"Then let's compromise," Heather offered, grasping at straws now. "Two weeks. If we get no good chances, and I mean really good chances, not stupid risks, we go home after two weeks." Dagur had to die, but she needed to buy time now that her companions were no longer so enthusiastic about it.

'One week,' Einfari countered. 'Because if we get home after Maour, our punishment will be even worse, for making them worry.'

'Three days,' Nóttreiði growled at the same time, offering no explanation.

"One week," Heather exclaimed. "Done."

'One week it is,' Einfari hummed thoughtfully. 'And it has to be something we really can do, not some outlandish plan.'

'I said three days, but fine,' Nóttreiði grumbled. 'And I have to sign off on any plan that risks Einfari.'

Heather was fine with that condition. She didn't want to risk Einfari either. This was vengeance for her, and worth spending her life on if necessary, but not for her friend.

Besides, she was sure an opportunity even the now-reluctant Nóttreiði would agree to would appear soon. Something told her Dagur wasn't going to sit around while an entire ship of his was decimated by a dragon, no matter what he thought had really happened.

* * *

'Well, that's annoying.' Einfari huffed in discontent. It was an hour after dark, and a horn could be heard all the way up the mountain they had returned to as soon as it was too dark to be seen flying. Someone was sounding off every minute or so.

"Something's definitely happening." Heather was looking through her friend's eyes to try and get an idea of what was going on. Nóttreiði was watching the forest behind them for unlikely danger, content to hear about what was going on second-hand. "Everyone's swarming like ants, and Dagur's in the middle of it."

'It does look like the whole village is being turned out,' Einfari agreed.

Nóttreiði chuffed. 'Anything going on at the docks?'

'...Yes, actually. All the ships are being prepared. A total of eight of them, all heavily armed if those contraptions on the sides are all weapons. But why are they doing it now?' Einfari asked worriedly.

Heather had a pretty good idea why. "He's going after the Night Fury; it just took this long to get all of that ready. He doesn't have a high opinion of dragon intelligence if he thinks a lone dragon would take on eight heavily-armed ships." This was not the opportunity she was waiting for.

'So this night will be wasted looking for us,' Einfari concluded. 'Maybe tomorrow.'

* * *

Einfari, the guard for the first half of the night, woke Heather shortly after midnight. 'Heather, come look at this.'

Instead of physically coming over to the overhang Einfari was watching from, Heather just switched her vision over and remained where she was. "What's going on?"

'They circled the island, but they are not going back to the docks. What are they doing?'

Heather stared through her friend's eyes at the obviously departing fleet of ships. "I mean, it _looks _like they're leaving the island entirely. But why go anywhere in the middle of the night? Unless it's a hunting trip, and he just decided to leave at the right time to maybe run into the Night Fury…"

'In which case, we have no chance of catching him unaware; he's going to be expecting an attack at any moment,' Einfari concluded.

"But we can follow him. You gave me a week; I'm not going to sit here and hope he comes back in time." She still had the feeling that this was going to work out. So much bad luck had hounded her for so long; surely there had to be a balance, a run of good luck to counter it?

Or, as she was far more inclined to believe, she was just hanging on to this chance because she wasn't going to accept defeat. Luck was not a factor.

'We will follow. We'll have to do it from high in the sky, and it may be difficult, but it can be done.' Einfari glanced over at the boulder Nóttreiði was sleeping on. 'And he won't argue. He's really trying to change.'

Heather didn't contradict that with her view on the subject. Einfari did not need to know what she thought. It would just serve to depress her if Heather was convincing enough, or annoy her if she was not. "We're not done yet."

* * *

The next morning, upon confirming that Dagur really was leaving Berserker island in the midst of a dense, totally defended fleet of ships, Heather and her dragon companions took up the chase. They became a shifting pair of dots in the sky, never visible for long, always moving through clouds. Specters of death for one man, trailing persistently, always just far enough behind that nobody could possibly notice them.

Secrecy aside, the actual journey was not an easy one. A little searching once night had fallen always yielded somewhere they could at least set down, though that somewhere was often only just large enough for the three of them. Freshwater was just barely not an issue, thanks to the occasional island with a stagnant pond or running stream. They refilled the large waterskins at each possible place, and in such a way just barely managed to scrape along. It was in no way a comfortable journey, but it was doable.

During that time, Heather and Einfari talked, and as the days passed Nóttreiði joined in more and more. Heather noticed that he still had a short temper, but he had become adept at squashing it. If she didn't know better, she would think he no longer harbored an irrational hatred for her, or humans in general. That last bit was the biggest evidence he was faking it; there was no way he had changed so much so quickly.

Einfari had told her he was different when no outsiders were around to put his defenses up, but this was proof. A cynical kind of proof, because she knew under the cover of acting normal he was still the same suspicious, angry dragon, but proof nonetheless, because Einfari confirmed this was how he normally was.

Einfari also claimed he was capable of dry humor, smart, and considerate, but Heather had yet to see any of that. All Heather saw was what he wanted her to see, a still suspicious dragon trying to lower his guard on his sister's behalf.

If only he would really lower his guard. She wished he really meant to get to know her and let go of his hatred. She also wished another dangerous male would lower his guard, for a very different reason.

Dagur's small fleet remained an untouchable target, highly alert and totally ready to fight at all times. The week came and went, but nobody suggested going back. They all wanted to at least see where Dagur was going, after this much effort put into following him.

Then, one evening, they caught up to Dagur's fleet after a long break at a convenient island to refill their water skins, and found that he had reached his destination. Most of the ships were putting down anchor in the water a distance away from a simple, treeless island. Dagur's had gone ahead to dock at the island itself.

'Why this hunk of rock and grass?' Einfari sounded mystified. 'So many ships, and no reason to be there.'

Heather was shocked. "Those are all from different tribes. Berk, Berserkers, Lava-Louts, Outcasts, and more I don't recognize. This is a meeting of some sort." She paled. "We need to stay far away from there. There's no way we're getting to Dagur with representatives from every big tribe in the archipelago on an island that size with him."

No matter how much Heather wanted Dagur dead, she could easily see that this was even worse than attacking him on the ship would have been. The island was crawling with the archipelago's most important and by extension most dangerous men and women.

'Say…' Einfari squinted down at the island, which was ringed with flickering torches, night just beginning to fall. 'Is that Toothless?'

_**Author's Note: **_**How not surprising! This arc was so short, I almost wish I could have put it before we went to Toothless and Maour on Berk, but the spoiler of seeing them here would have been too much, and cutting away without showing Toothless and Maour would have been a little pointless. Besides, there's something to be said for breaking up the pre-meeting and the meeting itself with a short interlude. (A funny bit of writing strategy: In the last Maour chapter, I introduced a crap-ton of new characters, some of which I don't plan to use at all, but who by nature of the scene needed to be named. By then immediately switching over to somebody else and spending a few weeks away from those characters, I'm almost certain the names have faded from the minds of most readers. This way, I can re-introduce the important people as needed and leave the background characters in the background, despite having introduced them as supposedly important earlier. Something of a technical narrowing of the cast.)**

**I think that makes sense, anyway. This chapter was a very difficult one to write, especially given how much I had to drop, postpone, or change in terms of tone and Nóttreiði. I might have to come back later and improve it, as much as I don't want to.**

**Want an idea of just how much changed? Imagine I took the plot device of the attack to neuter everything I've ever established about Nóttreiði's character and force his character to make a total about-face turn in his views on humans. Now imagine I did it really, really badly, and tried to turn him into a totally different person in the space of a single chapter. **

**And if you can't imagine that, don't worry, the most offensively bad scenes will make it into the deleted scenes extra I'm putting at the end of this story, because that really was the first version of this chapter. This section of the story had a **_**lot **_**of problems in the first draft, and you'll get to see them eventually.**


	22. Chapter 22

_**Author's Note: **_**I'm sorry this chapter is a week late; this story got waylaid by circumstance, and as I am rewriting it, my usual 'prewrite **_**everything**_' **strategy has been defeated by lack of time. It shouldn't happen again, and I am only a few weeks away from being back to consistent wifi, so there is also that.**

"Of course they didn't go home!" Maour ranted to Toothless as they sped towards what they had seen flying above the meeting island. "Why did I even expect it? Heather is set against Dagur, and apparently, Nóttreiði hates humans enough to go along with whatever crazy scheme to off Dagur Heather and Einfari can come up with!"

Toothless growled. He didn't sound very happy either. 'Maybe they have a good reason for being here. Don't get mad at them until you hear the whole story.'

Maour grumbled to himself. "Well, it better be a good story." He was almost angrier at himself than Heather and Einfari. He was an optimistic fool, to expect them to just go home with Dagur in their sights. He should have gotten Heather to promise before leaving them alone to make their way home. Looking back, he saw that Heather had never said they'd go straight back. She and Einfari had dodged that every time it came up. It was obvious, at least in retrospect.

Judging by the careful, silent manner in which Toothless was approaching the other dragons, he had decided to give the renegade Furies he had seen circling from afar a fright. Maour was entirely fine with that.

Toothless powered up as high as he could fly, to where his wings could barely keep them up in the thin air, and quickly navigated to a spot over where the Furies would be, dropping like a rock once in position. He flew silently, not even flapping his wings, and glided up behind Einfari and Nóttreiði, completely unnoticed by the three interlopers.

'Land. Now.' That was accompanied by a snarl as Toothless voiced the full extent of his displeasure.

The two grey-eyed Furies and sole rider jolted at the same time. Heather looked back, her face a mixture of shock and shame. "Fine. There's a sea stack a little way out. We'll land there." She was clearly surprised to see Maour and Toothless right there, but not surprised to see them in general. Maour supposed they had been fairly visible on the hilltop.

Nóttreiði meekly followed Einfari's lead, not saying a word or even voicing his displeasure at being ordered around, on the other hand, was far less understandable. That was hugely out of character for the angry Fury.

Toothless followed above and behind the three as they quickly made their way to the aforementioned sea stack. It was actually two separate sea stacks, one slightly higher than the other, and leaning on the shorter. Maour and Toothless landed on the higher end, and Einfari and Nóttreiði landed on the lower end.

Toothless took a good look at Nóttreiði and inhaled sharply. The still-healing wound was clearly visible. 'What happened to you?' His voice wasn't nearly as angry now.

Nóttreiði sighed, looking down. 'I did something terrible and paid the price.' He sounded discouraged.

"Don't bother him about it; he's already feeling bad about it as is," Heather advised, staring at Maour and nodding significantly at Nóttreiði, who was still looking down.

Maour shrugged his shoulders and mouthed a silent 'what?' at her. If she was trying to tell him something, he wasn't getting it.

'And you can skip the scolding, Toothless,' Einfari added defiantly. 'We will get more and worse from our parents; all you could come up with would just be a preview.'

'That does not stop it from making _me _feel better,' Toothless grumbled. 'Please, explain why you thought coming here was a good idea.'

"You're here, so obviously it's not that bad of one," Heather observed snarkily. "We were trailing a soon-to-be dead man."

'Because we wished to know where he was going,' Einfari contributed. 'We were going to fly home if no good opportunity came along…'

"What?" Maour could tell Einfari didn't want to say anything.

'If no good opportunity came along within a week, which has come and gone,' Nóttreiði growled sullenly. 'We all wanted to see this through, even if it is dangerous.'

"Dagur needs to die," Heather summarized. "We believe that, even if you don't. He's here, and you're here too… so what in Thor's name is going on with you?"

'We still have not heard why Nóttreiði is sporting an open wound,' Toothless said sternly. 'You are in the wrong, so you tell all first.'

'It is a short, simple story.' Einfari looked back as Heather slipped off of her back. 'Heather?'

"You tell Toothless; I need to talk to Maour." Heather jumped up and pulled herself onto the higher sea stack, gesturing to Toothless as she clambered up. "Go, if you want to know."  
'You are pushy for a defiant miscreant,' Toothless complained, doing as she had suggested.

Maour stared at Heather, unsure what she wanted. "Aren't we going to be saying the exact same things as them?" he asked skeptically.

"No; I have more to tell." Heather shrugged, lowering her voice. "And some of it I don't want Einfari to hear, so I'm telling you that first, while she cannot possibly listen in."

Maour looked down, over at said Night Fury, who seemed to be defending herself from an increasingly vexed Toothless's questions. "Go fast."  
"Nóttreiði will act like he's turned over a new leaf. Don't believe it entirely; he has just decided to be a little less open with his feelings. He still probably wants me and you dead."

Nóttreiði didn't like humans? That was like Heather telling him the sky was blue; not hard to believe, whether or not he would prefer it to be false. "_That_ is the secret?"

"Einfari believes him, and I don't want to aggravate her by telling her that." Heather shrugged. "Anyway, that was it. If you want to know what we did, it's pretty simple."

"Run it by me anyway," Maour sighed. He was not really used to ordering people around; there wasn't much need for that at home. Not having anyone to order around was not helped any by the fact that the twins and Fishlegs answered to the heads of the families that had taken them in, and nobody else. He was not inexperienced, but he certainly did not feel comfortable questioning someone who had been under his authority, in a sense, much less someone who had also defied that authority so flagrantly.

"We went after Dagur, used Nóttreiði to attack a scout ship, rescued Nóttreiði when that didn't work, and followed him here. That's it."

So simple, yet so ridiculously full of complications. "Did Dagur _see _you doing this?" There was no way Dagur wouldn't mention it if he knew of it, but Maour didn't understand why any of the three would attack a ship that didn't have Dagur on it.

Well, except for Nóttreiði. Maour could totally understand why he would do that kind of thing.

"I mean, he knows by now that a Night Fury killed an entire ship's worth of Berserkers," Heather said carefully. "There's pretty much no evidence it was us specifically. We made it look like the work of a lone Night Fury, and nobody lived to say otherwise."

"So why didn't he say anything about it?" Maour wondered aloud. There had to be more; Dagur wasn't the kind of person to hold back something like that without a reason.

"You've talked to him recently?" Heather asked skeptically. She turned to look at the distant island and the sporadic patches of light. "Also, if one of those campfires is his, Einfari and I are going to blow it to oblivion, so please tell me you know which is which."

"No, you're not." Maour was sure, now more than ever, that killing Dagur wasn't the best option. "This is a place of peace, and nobody is going to break that. Toothless and I have a chance to get allies against both Berk and the Berserkers, and breaking the peace is a great way to stop that from happening."

"Allies." Heather pointed at him. "Your turn to explain."  
Maour quickly spoke of Camicazi, making a deal with the Bog Burglars, and the peace he and Toothless were a part of that allowed them to stand among hated foes without much fear for their lives. He stuck to the bare essentials, not wanting to go into detail when there were more important things to be discussed.

Throughout the rushed explanation, Heather began to look more and more annoyed, tapping her foot impatiently. When Maour was finished, she scowled aimlessly. "Once again, talking instead of just taking the enemy down here and now."

Maour had taken just about enough attitude from Heather by that point. "Once again focusing on killing Dagur like it's going to change anything! This obsession is going to get you and probably whoever helps you killed, and I'll not let it also get my home and people killed too."

"I am _going _to end Dagur," Heather gritted. "He's right there." She pointed out at the island.

"Probably surrounded by guards, in a place where an attack by a Night Fury or one known to be associated with me will destroy everything I'm trying to do for the good of all of us, not just you." Maour decided it was time to put his foot down. "Make one false move to attack anyone on that island, and Toothless will help me stop you and Einfari by force. If she's stupid enough to do that in the first place."

Heather's response was a wordless exclamation of disgust, more of an angry grunt than anything. She turned away from Maour and went to go sit on the edge of the sea stack.

'Just checking in,' Toothless's voice said wryly. 'Is she attacking you? That sounded like a snarl to me.'

"Heather is just facing the fact that she disobeyed orders for nothing," Maour replied loudly. "What's the verdict there?"

'We are very sorry to have not gone straight home, but I owe Heather my help in ending Dagur,' Einfari replied, hopping up onto the higher sea stack. 'We need to focus on the here and now. The mission is to gather support?'

"Yes. It's good to see at least _one _of you sees the value in gaining allies," Maour announced sarcastically. "How enraged is Nóttreiði at that idea?"

'Very,' Nóttreiði gritted from below after Toothless translated the question. 'But I understand the idea of letting one enemy kill another.' There was a heavy irony to his words that Maour did not get. Probably a reference to something that had happened to his group recently.

"Good. And you understand that-"

'Toothless is in command; I will not defy any further orders.' Nóttreiði's voice was downright sullen. 'I believe it best I remain here for the time being.'

"Yes, that's definitely best." Maour was not going to take Nóttreiði down into a place of peace to be surrounded by Vikings. He wouldn't be comfortable taking _Togi_ down there, let alone a falsely repentant Nóttreiði.

"I, on the other paw, will be going down there if you can get me included in this peace,' Einfari declared defiantly. 'Let at least one Nótt be present.'

"I'm going down there," Heather agreed. "So add me to that too."

'Wait, if Einfari is going I will go too,' Nóttreiði added, not even giving Maour a chance to respond to the previous two requests. 'I will not leave her back undefended there.'

Toothless snarled loud enough to cut them all off. 'This is a _peaceful _mission, and you three have reasons to not be peaceful. You have also gone against orders before now, on this very trip. Give us _one _good reason to take you into a volatile situation and vouch for you.'

Heather glared at Toothless. "You wouldn't get it," she asserted angrily. "I'm not going peacefully. I just need you to get me in close enough."

"Heather-" Maour began, frustrated beyond words.

'No!' Of all dragons, it was Toothless who interrupted him. 'Maour,' he continued in a far less rude tone, 'let me talk to her. You get Einfari and Nóttreiði's side of this. I think I might be more suited to… disarm… Heather than you.'

Maour shrugged aimlessly. "Sure." He certainly wasn't getting through to her. Toothless might as well try.

* * *

'I would say let's go for a flight,' Toothless quipped as he ascended to the higher pillar and Maour descended, 'but she is no expert on tailfin operation.'

"Good luck, Toothless," Maour said fervently.

'Thanks.' Toothless knew Maour really meant it, too. Some people might be offended at having someone else offer to take over at something they were failing, and then wish that person to fail to validate their own lack of success, but Maour did not have that particular character flaw.

He also did not possess another character flaw Toothless knew he and Heather shared. The need for vengeance.

That was the reason he was finally going to try talking to Heather himself. He understood why she felt so strongly.

"What's your angle?" Heather asked bitterly once they were alone.

'Understanding and agreeing with you?' Toothless supplied, settling down next to her. 'We do not know each other very well, do we?'

"No," was all the reply he got.

'My fault,' Toothless generously claimed. 'Did you know dragons have a natural vindictive streak?'

"Just like Vikings," Heather mumbled.

'Not Maour. It's one of his strengths." Toothless was reminded of how easily Maour had cast aside the idea of avenging Stoick, though his explanation to Gobber of not caring about Stoick was a blatant lie, even if Maour himself also believed it. 'It saves him a lot of trouble and anger.'

"And here you're going to tell me to just throw my hate aside for the greater good. Save it."

'Here I am going to tell you that were I you, I would not do anything like that.' Toothless knew he was taking a long shot. 'But I would not live to see that I should have.'

Heather turned to look at him for the first time since they started talking. "That makes no sense."

"Maour is a thinker; I am a doer. Maour has a human mind, and I have a dragon mind. What he lacks in aggression and vindictive qualities, I make up for, even if that does not often happen. And I know that were Cloey or Shadow to die at some human's hands, or even some dragon's paws, I would hunt them to the end of the world. He would too, but we are talking of me.'

"So you get it."

'I totally get it.' Toothless could easily put himself in Heather's place. 'I would want to kill at any cost. But no matter how strong my anger, how much my enemy deserved to die, I would not be able to kill them if it meant I would die too.'

Heather chuckled bitterly. "I win, then, because I'm willing to do exactly that here. Viking peace probably means I'm dead the moment I kill Dagur."

'The moment you so much as strike him, actually. But you do not win a prize for dedication, you win a prize for selfishness.'

Heather glared at him. "If anything, I am being selfless, not selfish."

'Wrong.' Toothless knew he had her now. 'Being selfless would involve waiting until killing him did not risk hurting others.'

"Killing him here hurts nobody but me."

'Einfari loses a close friend. Joy loses a playmate. The Nótt family loses a human who brings them closer to the rest of the pack. The pack loses an enemy one of our members knows, and probably gains one just as bad that we have no knowledge of.' And Maour would lose a potential mate, but Toothless left that one out because it was far from a sure thing, and not something he needed to bring up right now. 'Letting yourself die for vengeance takes something from everyone who has helped you recover a life worth living.'

"Thought all of that out, have you?" Heather asked bitterly. She was angry because he was right.

'I had to. My father made me. He says his father taught him the same lesson, and that I would have learned it earlier had he been around to teach it then.' Toothless had understood it easily enough, mostly because he had not been currently embroiled in the emotions the concept dealt with. Heather was going to have a harder time with it, because she already thought she knew better.

"So what do you propose I do?" Heather asked, turning away from him. "Stay here, alone, let Maour do his nonviolent thing, and try to forget Dagur exists?"

'No way. First, I say you go to the island and try to get Dagur off of the warpath against anyone but you. Say whatever you want to him, but don't let yourself die, whether you or he might strike first.' Toothless was making this part up, but it felt convincing. 'Then, make sure Maour knows you're up for fighting for anyone who opposes Dagur. I don't think he can be totally stopped without conflict and the agreement we're hoping to get has mutual defense against him in it, so just make sure you and Einfari will be there, and in the meantime train up every possible advantage you can think of, in the both of you.'

"Wait and hope I run into him someday in the future," Heather cynically summarized.

'Live a good life and kill him when the perfect chance comes to you. If it never does, then you have won anyway, because that is all he can take from _you _now. A good life.'

Heather did not answer for a long while. As he waited, Toothless mentally debated checking in with Maour and the other Night Furies, but decided against it, knowing that Maour would be fine.

"If Nótts are cynics, then what are Svarturs? Optimists?" Heather asked with a wry smile.

'No. But we're not pessimists either. There's no special word for being in the middle.' Toothless shook his head. 'Not like we need one. Who needs to label what they are? It's the same whether or not there's a name applied to it. Putting the name on it just makes you think you _have _to be that thing all the time.' He thought that a good piece of advice.

"Sure." Heather didn't sound all that impressed. "So the short version is that I should stop being selfish and swallow my hate for now, so that I can… what? Why else would Maour need me on that island? I might as well not go."

'I think you could watch his back where I could not,' Toothless suggested. 'Help him negotiate deals with other tribes. You are like a Nótt and are also a human; he could use that sort of help.'

"Fine." Heather sighed angrily. Toothless knew that meant she really had seen reason. "I'll still kill Dagur one day. Avenging my family is important."

'Yes. But not as important as preserving the happiness of your new one. That comes first.'

"They're not my family," Heather replied automatically, sounding like she wasn't sure whether she was right. "They are just-"

'People who took you in, claimed you as their responsibility, adjusted their lives and mindsets for the most part, and plan to stand by you.' Toothless knew family when he saw it, no matter what Heather or any particular Nótt had to say about it.

"Stop being right," Heather replied rebelliously. "But if they're family, then one thing's for sure. I have bad luck with brothers."

From what Toothless knew, that was no joke, but why would Heather say that now, when Nóttreiði was apparently beginning to see the light?

He resolved to not ask that question. He wasn't Maour or Shadow, to spout wisdom ceaselessly. It only worked here because Heather was dealing with something Toothless had already considered for himself.

And thinking of Maour spouting wisdom on command… Toothless looked over at the other sea stack, wondering if Maour was done yet.

* * *

"Einfari," Maour began, temporarily putting Heather's vengeance out of his mind, "can I expect you and your brother to actually listen to me on this?"

'Yes, you can,' Einfari warbled, speaking for the both of them.

"Good." He didn't need to deal with any stubbornness issues lumped on top of the other problems they would be discussing. "I want you both to understand something. If you so much as try to attack anyone on that island, they _will _kill you, and if Toothless or I try to interfere, the same applies to us. But that same concept applies to _them _too. It all depends on who strikes first."

'That seems counter-intuitive; surely the _best _solution to prevent conflict is to make it known _both _combatants would be killed if anything happens,' Einfari rumbled.

"If that was the case the more crazy would be able to pressure the less crazy into anything they wanted." He could totally see Dagur convincing someone like Snotlout that he would send them both to Valhalla that instant if Snotlout didn't cave on some trade deal or something.

'This so-called peace is really just assuring that the would-be attacker waits until it is over, then,' Nóttreiði growled. 'It is really just a pause in hostilities.'

"Basically, yes," Maour agreed, for once not disputing Nóttreiði's assessment of the situation. "But it adds up to the same thing. Do not attack, and you will be fine. If they attack, flee. Let the other humans deal with them, and trust me, they will."

That explained, Maour got down to the serious part of the talk. "Now I want you two to convince me you can do that. Nóttreiði, you first."

Nóttreiði glared at him for a long moment before abruptly relenting, looking down at the stone. "I am _trying _to change. Right now, I want Einfari safe. You say attacking means I die? Then it is in my best interest to not attack. That is all."

Maour had honestly expected some bloodthirsty plan to provoke Vikings into attacking simply to get them killed, but he was more than happy to not hear that coming from Nóttreiði. That didn't mean he was convinced yet. "I get you _plan _to be peaceful. In practice, though? It will not be easy. Some of these humans _do _want you, me, and everyone else on these sea stacks dead."

'I have already made the mistake of thinking myself in control and always right.' Nóttreiði nodded to Einfari. 'There is nothing I can say to you about my self-control; you have no reason to believe me. Know that I accept the consequences if I cannot do this simple thing.'

That was pretty convincing, but Maour had just been burned by trusting too easily. "So what _do _you see yourself doing down there?"

'Protecting Einfari.'

"The peace will do that. You attacking her attackers would make things worse and get you killed."

'_Protecting_,' Nóttreiði emphasized. 'In this case, that means throwing myself between her and any who attack, and if need be by taking the injury meant for her.'

Einfari barked in annoyance. 'Who says I want you to try and do that?!' she exclaimed angrily. 'That is stupid!'

'Fine, then, I will simply provide another set of eyes and ears at all times. Happy?' Nóttreiði asked defiantly.

'Do that,' Einfari asserted. 'Only that.'

Maour nodded in spite of himself. Maybe he was too forgiving and trusting, and her recalled Heather's warning given just moments ago, but he could not help but believe Nóttreiði would do as he had told Einfari, and no more. "I believe you mean to do that, Nóttreiði. But I need your word you will obey Toothless if he tells you to do something."

'I gave as much to my father… and then broke it, in spirit if not in exact wording,' Nóttreiði admitted. 'You have my word.'

Too easy, but Maour could not complain. "Your turn, Einfari."

'I am not easily provoked when I know someone will be trying to provoke me,' Einfari said confidently. 'Heather wants Dagur dead, but we are intelligent enough to wait when it means certain death to try. Truly,' and here she leaned in and lowered her mental voice so that it would not be overheard, 'I hope Toothless convinces her to at least put aside her hate. It is only hurting her. But I promised to help her kill him, so I will not give her reason to think I will not uphold that promise.'

"So do I," Maour agreed vehemently on the subject of hoping Toothless could somehow reason with Heather where he could not. "I think you will have a harder time keeping Heather in check than yourself." He needed little convincing from Einari…

But he also needed something else all the same. "And I want your word; you'll obey Toothless or me, even over Heather's wishes, for as long as we are here." He did not want to come between Heather and Einfari, but if he had to, he wanted some leverage to ensure he would not fail.

'You have it; I cannot be blamed for defying Heather if I had to give my word to even accompany her,' Einfari agreed readily. 'How long is this meeting of important humans supposed to last?'

"At least three days, probably more." He wanted to get as many tribes in on the mutual defense pact as possible, so he would take all the time he could get as long as things remained safe.

'And it… you are not planning on taking _any _of these humans, supposedly non-hostile or not, to our home island, or letting them know where it is?' Nóttreiði asked urgently.

Maour smiled reassuringly. "First and most importantly, I'm not that stupid. Second, I promised the pack not to reveal our island's location to _anyone_. Third, even if I wanted to and could, I wouldn't do it here or now, because there are plenty of humans here who cannot find out that location. Like Astrid."  
Einfari was immediately on the alert. 'The human who wants all of our kind and you dead. She is here and you are not afraid she will break the peace?"

'She wants all of our kind dead by her hand or at least her order, and we're not even close to all here; she knows of Cloey if nobody else for sure. That's the reason she gave for not attacking me tonight, anyway." It was not at all reassuring, and he knew she would break the peace if he pushed her too far, but it _was _some small explanation for her actions.

'We will follow your lead,' Einfari declared, partially for Maour and partially, given how she very deliberately said we, for Nóttreiði's benefit. 'You know the currents that might otherwise drag us down.'

"Yes, I do." Maour noticed Toothless looking down from the higher sea stack. "Toothless, have you and Heather discussed this?"

'Yes. I trust her to go down there and not attack as long as someone remains vigilant and reminds her that she would not just be sacrificing her own future,' Toothless said solemnly.

"Good for her," Maour decided. If Toothless could handle Heather more effectively than he could, he would leave them to it. He certainly didn't know how Toothless had managed that. "Now, we have the rest of the night to sleep. Tomorrow, we go to work."

"What is the actual plan, Maour?" Heather asked, dropping down and walking over to stand by Einfari, her face unreadable.

"We make our way around all of those campsites tomorrow and talk to certain Chiefs individually, getting our foot in the door with them. That night, Bertha and I will propose the deal to them." He would explain the two specific tribes he was supposed to handle tomorrow morning before they set out. "It is basically a lot of posturing and negotiating, while avoiding the less friendly Chiefs, all done in a way to ensure we do not look weak at any point in time."

Heather nodded. "What's your strategy for explaining me and the others?"

"You're a friend, and so are they. Technically speaking, the 'Isle of Night' we're going to be talking about is actually just me and Toothless right now. We can get the pack to decide whether or not they want that to expand to include them later, but for the time being-"

'You are making no promise you cannot keep on your own,' Einfari purred. 'I approve. Who came up with that one?'

"I did. Anyway, Heather, feel free to help me talk to these people, offer advice, whatever, but I have to be the one doing the talking in the end."

"Unless it's Dagur. I'll talk to him myself this time around." Heather spread her arms. "And I don't plan on tricking him into striking first, before you start wondering."

'She understands,' Toothless added knowingly.

"Okay then." Maour yawned, and was forced to consider the time of night. "We can sleep out here, and talk through the rest of this in the morning. Our first stop will be the Order-Keeper, to add you three to the official peace."

'No, our first stop is breakfast,' Toothless corrected lightly.

"Second stop. We will want to eat on the beach to avoid looking scared of everyone else, and that means being safe before we do that. Don't worry, it will be quick." He didn't expect trouble with the Order-Keeper.

'Hypothetically,' Einfari asked after a moment, 'would it be good or bad if we harmlessly scared these humans? You speak of not looking afraid as if doing so will put us in a less influential position.'

"If you have a way to do that, tell me." He would play the little unspoken game of reputation for all it was worth, and with a few Nótts on his side, he felt more than capable of doing do. But that was for tomorrow.

* * *

So much to discuss, and so little time! Dagur immediately made for Astrid once he had shaken off the jitters of not being able to kill when near-bloodlust descended. Always annoying, that, but this place was a lesson in controlling himself for an extended time, and he knew he needed to. No single kill immediately repaid by death could be as satisfying as all the kills he would make if he did not attack here.

Savage was following him, of course. He didn't care; Savage was always following. The important person was sitting out in front of her tribe's tents, sharpening a stake. A fittingly ominous activity, given the rage he suspected she was also dealing with.

Luckily, he knew their moods would soon change. One of the many benefits of being like them; no setback could keep them down for long at all. Who had time for anger or frustration when there was always something new to kill?

"Astrid!" he called out happily, laughing maniacally for a short time.

"Dagur." Astrid stood and hefted the stake, before driving it into the sand, never taking her eyes off of him. "What do you want?"

"To commiserate!" Dagur pointed up at the hill, though there were no accursed shapes to be seen there any longer. "To plot revenge! To court you!" All three were about the same in his mind, at least for the moment.

"I did say you could try," Astrid said dismissively. "I didn't say you would be able to succeed. And I need no help in plotting."

"Oh, at least _let _me help," Dagur asked hopefully. "Hear me out! Five minutes, no more." He wanted to force her to listen, but that wouldn't work any better on her than it would on him. She was a new kind of challenge. An interesting one, too.

"Three."

"I can do it in one." Dagur pointed out at the open water. "See those lights out there?"

"The ones from your ships," Astrid remarked, coming to stand beside him, sharpened stake and ax in hand.

"Yes!" He was fully enthusiastic about this now, to the point where if Hiccup walked right in front of them, he would probably just shove him out of the way. "Eight fully-armed warships, crewed by Berserker island's… dregs."

Astrid looked over at him, unamused. "Get to the point."

"I am!" He held down a flash of rage. "These are my dregs, maybe a _tenth _of my total might, but then again… how many warships does Berk have? Ten in total?"  
"Fourteen, now." Astrid seemed to be getting his point. "None as good as these, either."

"We have many things in common," Dagur enthused. "I have an armada, you have a target you hate, I hate that target too, you're insane, I'm insane… it all makes sense."

"A target that is right here, right now." Astrid snapped the sharpened stake over her knee in a burst of anger. "You want to court me? Help me kill him without repercussion and I'm yours, assuming our honeymonth is spent hunting the Night Furies he claims as his own."

Too easy, though he was glad she had so quickly grasped that being with him would put his fleet at her genocidal disposal. "No, I want to have to work for you," Dagur complained. "No deal. I'll try and help you kill him, but at least put up a fight before giving in to my pursuit."

"I'm not the prey," Astrid growled, stalking a few steps away from him. "Forget that and I'll gut you."

"Predators hunt predators, you know," Dagur retorted. "What do you think us hunting dragons is?"

Astrid smiled, her anger gone in an instant. "Very true. Or us hunting other so-called Vikings."

Perfect. She might be the same as him, but he had more practice with the mood swings they suffered from, and he would use that. This really was a hunt, him for her, and she didn't know the game as well as he did.

"And speaking of hunting both humans and Vikings…" Dagur gestured to his ships. "The rules around here are interesting. Allow me to explain which parts will let us slaughter Hiccup and his dragon unopposed."

"I am listening."

Dagur could not help but inwardly celebrate as he explained what he knew of this so-called peace's loopholes. They were subtle and frustrating, but they were there, and along with the promise of overwhelming power, they were his courting gift to Astrid. He would catch her, and soon. There really wasn't any reason for her to resist. And in the process, they would have some fun hunting down actual prey.

_**Author's Note: **_**So, for anyone who didn't know what Dagur was planning to do at this meeting, now you do. Sorry for what some might rightfully consider yet another setup chapter, but I had to do it… and what's a good chapter without a cliffhanger?**


	23. Chapter 23

_**Author's Note: **_**A new chapter, and an updated thumbnail for this story! Been waiting a long time to put up the true form of that thumbnail, though it's a minor change. Read into it what you will, but in all honesty, I just thought that it was one of the most visually distinctive changes that occur during this story, and was also one that was within my power to easily draw (or in this case add to an existing drawing of mine).**

Heather didn't know what to think of herself. Here she was, landing on the same island as Dagur, the person responsible for her family's demise, and she was planning to not so much as raise a finger in his direction. She felt like a coward. A miserable, sneaky coward who couldn't look her enemy in the face unless she had a knife behind his back.

Or a pragmatic, level-headed person who didn't want to hurt any of the people who cared about her by attacking here and dying as a result. She had Toothless to thank for that interpretation of her own actions. She also had him to blame for feeling conflicted at all, so the two canceled each other out.

But conflicted was better than dead, right? She believed so, which was why she was walking with Maour and the others to the Viking in reflective armor, not seeking out Dagur's camp and having Einfari immolate it. With her luck, Dagur would be out at the time, or able to get away, or fireproof.

And if she did that, both she and Einfari would end up dead. Not acceptable. Heather had never been willing to sacrifice others for her cause. Only herself. Now, thanks to Toothless, she understood that sacrificing herself also sacrificed the happiness of others, so she couldn't even let herself do that. This was all his fault.

"This is a sight I will not soon be used to," the Order-Keeper announced as they approached, Maour and Toothless in front of Heather and her companions. "You wish to add them to the peace of this place?"

"Yes, and quickly, before any of the other Vikings here take a stab at them. Literally." Maour stepped aside and gestured for Heather to come forward.

"I only need their blood to seal them into the same peace you agreed to, assuming they are from the same place." The Order-keeper held out a knife, drawn from somewhere under his armor.

Blood. Maour had told them of this. Heather was impressed Nóttreiði hadn't freaked out or even complained when Maour had told them earlier this morning before the sun had even begun to rise over the horizon. He was obviously sticking to the 'fake turning over a new leaf' plan with all of the stubbornness he had held to open defiance previously. At least now it was to everyone's benefit.

Of course, new leaf or not, Nóttreiði _had_ flat-out refused to let any human cut Einfari for any reason. They had a way around that, one that involved her going first.

"I'd like to hear exactly what I'm agreeing to," she requested, taking the plain, fairly-new knife the Order-keeper offered her. "I know the general idea, I want specifics."

"To physically attack another on this island, for whatever reason, is punishable by being sent to meet the gods immediately," the Order-keeper intoned. "No violence of any kind on this island, against anyone. Accidents are _thoroughly _investigated, and if there is even a hint of wrongdoing by the one who _accidentally _harmed the other, it will be left up to the gods to decide."

Which was the same as saying accidents were also punishable by death. Heather was glad she didn't have the ax Maour had made for her. The longbow and arrows she had taken from the Berserker ship were more than enough as a last resort, and far less likely to permit accidents, given the bow couldn't hurt anyone on its own, and the arrows were safely ensconced in the quiver she wore.

Maour and Toothless hadn't remarked on her being armed yet. They seemed to understand Nóttreiði might not fully know what she was carrying around, and since Maour had his weapon on his back at all times, even here, weapons obviously weren't forbidden. Just their use.

'Only on land?' Einfari asked.

"Only on land?" Heather repeated, knowing the Order-keeper wouldn't be able to hear Einfari. "What about in the air or out on the water? Can we be shot at from the ground?"

The Order-keeper shook his head. "Ships that are not anchored or beached here are out of my jurisdiction. The air above this island, on the other hand, has no set rule. However, as the one shooting would be on the ground, logically they would be attacking against the peace, as _they _are still on the island. I will also consider air strikes against someone on the island breaking the peace, for obvious reasons."

That was about what she expected, though it was good to know all bets were off when it came to getting onto any ship. "Any other loopholes we should know to be wary of?"

"You think I am going to tell you the loopholes to the peace you are about to commit yourself to?" the Order-keeper asked incredulously. "I fear I will be forced to send you to the gods before the day is over. Leave, if it is your intention to exploit the peace. I will not stand for it."

"I wanted to know to protect myself and my friends," Heather shot back, cutting her hand with the knife. "I have reason to want one man here dead, but I can put that aside, and will."

"And now you must; you are under the peace of this place." The Order-keeper didn't ask for his knife back; he knew what was coming.

Heather handed the knife to Einfari, who took it by the hilt with her teeth and laboriously poked the top of her right paw with it. Then she turned to Nóttreiði and lightly jabbed his paw with it, staring into his eyes the entire time.

'If I cannot control myself here, then I deserve the consequence they will administer,' Nóttreiði growled. 'And if they attack me, I will flee to watch them be cut down by their own kind.' Penitent, but not too penitent, and reluctant enough that Heather believed there was some genuine good intent mixed into the subterfuge and lurking distrust. Now that he was actually trying to hide hid true feelings, he was doing it as well as any Nótt would.

Einfari nodded and presented the Order-keeper with his blood-stained knife. He took it gingerly, clearly reluctant to place his hand so near her razor-sharp teeth. "This Isle of Night is a place of many wonders, I think."

"At least three," Heather agreed, gesturing to the three Night Furies.

"It is done?" Maour asked, confirming what they all knew had just happened. Heather understood the sentiment; when their lives were on the line, it was a good idea to get everything repeated and confirmed. To die to some random mix-up or miscommunication would be almost comically stupid.

"Done; there are now two humans and three dragons from the Isle of Night under the peace." The Order-keeper made to leave them, before turning back. "Am I going to have to add any more of you before this gathering is over?"

"You definitely shouldn't," Maour said firmly. He left it at that, probably because it could mean anything from 'we're the only ones' to 'everyone else has strict orders to stay home.' He was toeing the line on what could and could not be revealed, and he was doing so with ease. Heather knew she had to do the same. Einfari had it easy; nobody here could hear her, so she could say whatever she wanted.

'So,' Einfari said, watching the Order-keeper go, 'how many people do you think he and his men execute at a normal meeting like this?'

'I would say one or two at most,' Toothless proposed. 'The ones in charge know to bring people who can handle themselves. And if the ones in charge can't do the same, their replacements will be able to. So, only a few."

'By the looks of it, that few sees us,' Nóttreiði rumbled, looking out over the beach at the nearest campsite.

Heather took a good look at the humans Nóttreiði was talking about. Three in total. A large man with two prosthetic limbs, a chubby man who seemed younger than the large man, and a fit, trim woman with blond hair and an ax, along with a sharpened stake. The woman's eyes burned with an unnerving intensity even from here, hundreds of yards away.

"That'd be Astrid, Snotlout, and Gobber," Maour informed them. "Stay away from Astrid. The other two shouldn't be any more dangerous than the average Viking."

'Astrid is the one as crazy as Dagur?' Einfari asked, eying the woman in question.

'Pretty much, yes. Don't let her get close to you.' Toothless growled warningly. 'If anyone is going to break this peace, it will be her or Dagur. Do not let them do so by striking a killing blow.'

"Avoid. Got it. So who do we _not _avoid here?" It kind of stunk that there was a supposed peace, but nothing preventing it from being broken but the fear of reprisal, which wouldn't do the victims of those breaking the peace any good. In fact, if Heather were a Chief with murderous intentions, she'd bring some disposable troops here and trade them for the lives of her greatest enemies, if any such troops could be found.

"Avoid all Berserkers, by the way," she warned, realizing that Dagur could have done exactly that. "Dagur might have brought a few honor-driven men to spend on killing the opposition."

"Who would volunteer for _that _job?" Maour asked skeptically.

"Last night I was volunteering myself." Looking at it that way, it was even stupider than Toothless had made it seem. "And Dagur is sadistic as well as crazy. They might not be volunteers. Take a prisoner, tell him he'll die a terrible, torturous death if he doesn't cooperate…"

'And bring him here to smite your most hated enemies while their backs are turned,' Einfari snarled. 'Peace or not, this place is a death trap.'

'We need to go, Einfari,' Nóttreiði growled. 'Let the humans and Toothless do their business; we are nothing but large, inviting targets.'

'I am here to support Heather; you are here to support me.' Einfari shrugged her wings dismissively. 'If it gets too tense, we will go, but not without her.'

"And _we _are here to talk to a few different Chiefs today," Maour interrupted, getting them back onto some semblance of a productive discussion. "Specifically the Waxears and the Meatheads. I could really use the advice of a few Nótts and my brother on that one."

'We are also here to get food. Remember my suggestion?' Einfari asked slyly.

'That _was _a good idea,' Toothless purred. 'Time for breakfast.'

"Fine," Maour laughed. "It'll set the mood, at the very least, and not everyone is up yet, so now's the time."

* * *

Explosions, the perfect way to start any day. That, or pained screams, or pitiful pleas for mercy-

Why had he been thinking of explosions? Dagur was about to cross it off as a hallucination when another blast echoed in the distance, not too far away. He bolted upright in an instant, grabbed his helmet and asymmetrical ax, and tore a hole right through the side of his tent. Battle was upon them!  
Savage was waiting outside his tent, correctly anticipating his disdain for the proper exit. "Sir, it's not a fight, they're just shooting the water. A demonstration of power, I think."

Dagur glared out at the ocean, and at the _three _Night Furies now swooping to skim the choppy water's surface. Of _course, _Hiccup and his beasts of burden would taunt him like this! Did they want an ax to the face? He'd be more than happy to give one or ten to them if they would just…

"What's the status of our ships off-shore?" Dagur asked hopefully. "Are they ready to fire yet?" He had needed to order some hasty modifications to their gear, mostly involving _removing _some of the more fatal adjustments he had added only a few weeks ago, but it would be worth it. Probably.

"Not yet, sir, but they worked through the night, so soon," Savage hastily reassured him, taking a subtle step back to get out of immediate axing range. A futile precaution if Dagur was in the mood to throw things and also in the mood to find a new second-in-command, but he was not, so Savage lived to cringe another day.

"Speaking of replacing you," Dagur idly continued, not caring that Savage had not heard his internal musings, "is that my absent sister up there?" Two of the Night Furies carried riders, and he recognized the black hair and stern face of the one he was sure was distantly related to him. She looked a lot like their mother, who had died long before Osvald had needed to be replaced.

"Possibly, but sir, she wants you dead." Savage shrugged his shoulders as if bothered by that. "You had decided to kill her, remember?"

"Since when? Never mind that; enough persuasion will change her mind." He very well might have resolved to have her executed, and it was entirely possible this was only the latest in a long series of changes of heart; there was a reason he preferred quick and easy plans or at least plans with simple results. It was hard to keep a consistent outlook on something he could go either way on.

"But could she lead anything afterward?" Savage asked quietly. Dagur didn't really hear him, too caught up in watching the Night Furies. At the very least, Hiccup and his stupid animals were giving everyone on this island a great introduction to what the beasts actually looked like. They were pretty unimpressive, really, and boasted plenty of great weak points. Big wings, long tails, four legs, low to the ground…

These dragons were basically begging to be killed, and it enraged him that he couldn't oblige them. Night Fury scale armor would be _great._ No, not scale, that was what Hiccup was wearing, Dagur wanted skin armor, chunks of rotting flesh strapped to existing leather armor to provide insulation and a stench fit to ward of anyone too weak-willed to ignore it.

Or, barring that, a Night Fury hat. He'd have to get someone on that as soon as he had two to play with. No, make that three. One for him to break and ride, a female for that one so he could stock a private island with flightless Night Furies to hunt when life got dull, and one to make his hat out of.

In other words, the three that were right in front of him in the distance. Those would do nicely, assuming one was female. He wouldn't know; for dragon killers, that kind of knowledge was just a side note when skinning the corpse.

"Savage, I want you to find out the gender of those dragons," Dagur commanded absently. "Also, make sure our soldiers know to take them alive."

Savage stared at him oddly for a brief moment before nodding. "Aye, sir."

"I want my own private island with a limitless supply of wingless Night Furies to hunt," Dagur expained, knowing he would rather not have to hear frustratingly inaccurate rumors, which _would _crop up if his men got wind of those requests without also hearing the real reasons for them. He was crazy enough; the truth should be enough to make men quake in fear. Rumors would just be annoying, and he couldn't afford to purge any here. He didn't have enough men here to be killing them on a whim.

"Oh, and invite Heather to dine with me on my lead ship," he continued after a moment. "The second she sets foot on the ship, pull anchor, drift off of the island, and capture her."

"Sir, she might not-"

"Be _convincing,_ Savage," Dagur exclaimed, kicking sand at his annoying subordinate. "Look, they're setting down over there. Go! And if you get attacked, make your last words a request for me to carry out the Order-keeper's retribution instead of one of his men." He couldn't go over there himself; the urge to kill would be too strong, and he knew his limits. The time would come; his plans were in motion, and so were Astrid's, some of which he knew and some of which he probably didn't.

Astrid was hunting Hiccup, and so was he, and he was hunting her at the same time. He was going to get everything he wanted here, and that wasn't even including everything that he planned on doing to prep these other so-called tribes for the imminent Berserker takeover.

* * *

'Incoming,' Nóttreiði growled. 'One, alone, armed.' This, he could do, and he didn't even have to bury his unease in the face of these actually threatening humans. If only Einfari wasn't here. This was a pointless risk for her.

And him, but he didn't care. Except he knew she would care, which was frustrating.

Nóttreiði took a deep breath and tried to focus on what he needed to be doing. Watching their surroundings, alerting Einfari and Toothless to any and all possible threats, and nothing else. Hiding his suspicion of the humans his sister persisted in being friends with until they showed their true nature… or until they didn't. That _was _a possibility.

'He was with Dagur on that other island,' Toothless growled. "Savage, I think. Dagur's chief minion?"

"Correct," Maour agreed, finishing off the hastily-cooked fish that was his portion of their catch. "Dagur's not coming, so this is either a distraction or a messenger."

'Heather says she isn't planning on listening to anything Dagur has to say,' Einfari said in a low tone, translating for Nóttreiði. She insisted on translating for Heather until she began speaking in both languages like Maour so that Nóttreiði could hear her.

Nóttreiði didn't really mind that, now. He needed to know what the human was saying in order to watch her as closely as possible. As his sister was getting into the habit of translating everything Heather said, even a lack of her translating would be a warning sign.

The human they called Savage was getting closer. Nóttreiði walked over to stand between Einfari and the approaching enemy, planting his paws in the sand. He would not be passed. That did mean he was defending Heather too, as Einfari had almost immediately pulled Heather behind her, but so be it.

Nóttreiði was here to defend and to watch, nothing more. He could hold himself back, and if he could not, then he would die. It was as simple as that. To protect Einfari, he could do it. Besides, there was something comforting about being surrounded by humans even the humans his sister liked considered threats. At least he was not at odds with his sister and her friends on this. They were as suspicious as him.

Of course, Maour and Toothless _were _trying to get some on their side, but Nóttreiði didn't really care about that. Let the humans fight each other here, far from home, as was the idea. That was a plan he could get behind, if it kept them away from home, away from Joy and his parents and all of the other Night Furies.

Besides, he was here, ready to interfere if Toothless or Maour so much as hinted at bringing any other humans to their home island or even telling them about it. Nóttreiði might not understand humans talking, but he could hear Maour talking like a dragon, and for Maour the two went together. By being here, he could enforce the security Maour himself had sworn to uphold. Yet another reason to hold his temper and bite his tongue.

Nóttreiði was here to protect and observe. He could do that with no issues. That was something a Nótt would do. Something Einfari would do, were she not already certain the humans purportedly on their side would not betray them.

The human was still approaching. Nóttreiði steeled himself and did nothing but glare, watching closely, as it began to speak.

* * *

"Dagur the Deranged, Chief of the proud Berserker tribe-"

"Can go throw himself off of a cliff," Heather offered, cutting Savage off. "Go away." She wasn't going to listen to Dagur, even through proxy. Being reminded that he was here just made her mad.

"Dagur invites you to dine with him on his leading warship," Savage continued, undeterred by her interruption. The three decidedly unfriendly dragons nearby were more intimidating, but it seemed he feared failing Dagur more than he feared being attacked, at least on this island. "That one, over there."

Heather eyed the floating ship out by the shore in the distance. "Fat chance." She had just found out ships weren't included in the peace if they were offshore, and a ship beached like that could be offshore in seconds. There was no way she was setting foot on any ship during this entire ordeal. "Not happening."

"Can't say I didn't tell you," Savage agreed, not seeming all that bothered by her refusal. He spent a few moments eyeing each of the Night Furies in turn before hastily retreating.

"Best interaction with a Berserker I've ever had," Heather remarked, putting Savage and Dagur out of her mind. "Maour, are we going to the Meatheads or Waxears first?"

Maour, who was messing around with Toothless's saddlebags, paused and looked over at her. "I know the Meatheads, so we'll do them first."

"Because they'll be easier to convince to hear you out later?" Heather guessed.

"No, because they'll be the _harder _of the two, for that same reason," Maour corrected her. He and Toothless took to the air, and Heather followed on Einfari. Nóttreiði flew behind them, eyeing anything and everything that moved on the island or out on the water.

"Why would they be harder?" She would assume more knowledge about the ones to be convinced would be an asset.

"They knew me before all of this," he called over to her.

'They knew Hiccup,' Toothless added. 'Weak, scrawny, pushover Hiccup. They will think nothing had changed.'

"Exactly," Maour agreed. "I'm sick and tired of explaining myself to everyone, and it's only the first full day. So I'm just going to forge ahead and totally ignore the insults. If you can see an angle to get them to listen, take it."

"I thought you were the one that had to make the deals?" Heather asked. It made sense; Maour was the 'leader' of the Isle of Night, at least on parchment, so he had to be the acting Chief for this kind of thing, even if it was understood that he wasn't actually in charge.

"To make the deals, yes, but we're just letting them know we'll have a deal for them tonight, so you can do all the convincing you want." Maour sounded unsure of himself. "And this is all assuming they'll actually want to join a defensive alliance against the Berserkers and Berk. But a chance at allies is better than no chance, however awkward this is going to be."

'It will be fine,' Toothless asserted. 'Is that the tent group we are aiming for?'

"No, the one to the left of that one," Maour corrected. One short curve in the air later, and they were descending a few dozen paces away from a scattered collection of tents. The Meathead ship, or so Heather assumed, was floating just offshore.

The tents looked empty. Heather dismounted and took a few steps toward them.

'There are humans fighting on that ship,' Nóttreiði growled, gesturing towards the ship. 'I hear them.'

Fighting? Heather couldn't see anyone on the ship from here, but the odds were that wasn't fighting, it was sparring, which was why it as taking place offshore. "That's going to be a problem."  
"Out of the bounds of the peace," Maour agreed. "I might know them, but that doesn't mean I trust them. Especially not them. None of us are setting foot on that ship."

'So do we just wait here?' Einfari asked skeptically. 'Or do we get their attention and make them come back onto the island?'

"Get their attention," was Heather's opinion on the subject. "They're Vikings, and they won't respect us if we just wait for them to have time. I'd say go onto the ship, but that's too dangerous, even for just me and Maour." She was used to being a wanted woman, and though these weren't Berserkers, her status as a dragon rider meant she was still very much a target for any Viking.

"Heather is right." Maour and Toothless took to the air once again. "You three stay back. We'll strafe them without firing, and I'll call Mogadon back to shore."

'Who says we cannot do that too?' Einfari growled as Toothless and Maour were off. For some reason, she didn't even suggest they ignore Maour's order on the subject, sticking solely to complaints about it.

'Our lack of combat experience; nothing stops them from firing on Toothless,' Nóttreiði observed. 'Nothing but ineptitude and lack of warning.'

"We really need to fix that lack of experience," Heather agreed, watching Toothless and Maour dive with a loud roar. They couldn't do that out here, but maybe something could be arranged back on the island.

The island. It didn't actually have a name, aside from the one Maour had just recently given it here for show, the Isle of Night. That would do, really.

'It appears we were not needed anyway,' Nóttreiði observed. The ship was dropping anchor and lowering a smaller craft, one with two very angry-looking men in it. One was huge, and the other solid but not bulky, younger than the large one. Both carried massive swords that hung down well past their knees in fittingly large sheaths. Heather thought up and saved for later a scathing comment about overcompensating, just in case things turned sour enough that she wanted to insult them.

'That worked,' Toothless said happily, landing beside Einfari. 'They're not too happy about it, either.'

"That's because we scared them," Maour explained. "Around here, showing fear is weakness, and scaring someone is strength. That's why us fishing just off the shore of the island and probably waking people up was a good idea. The more intimidating we are, the better our bargaining position it. It's stupid, but there's no getting out away from it."

'The more intimidating we are, the more likely they are to break this so-called peace and attack,' Nóttreiði added sourly. 'Einfari, let me stand between you and them.'

'And if I don't?' Einfari asked disagreeably.

'Why am I here if not to protect you?' Nóttreiði complained. 'Do not take that away from me. It is all I have left.' His voice broke a little with that, in what Heather suspected was true pain redirected to make this particular argument stronger. Nóttreiði was no slouch at manipulating, and Einfari wanted to believe, which made it easy for him to deceive her.

'Fine, stand between me and them,' Einfari granted. 'Heather, will you dismount for this? Maour did.'

Heather only then noticed that Maour had begun walking out to meet Mogadon and whoever the other Viking was. "Yes, I was distracted." She slid out of the saddle and jogged for a few seconds to catch up to Maour. Toothless, Einfari, and Nóttreiði flanked them from a short distance behind, ensuring absolutely nothing would go unnoticed. The three dragons acted as if they might be ambushed at any moment-

Which they might. The possibility of suicide Berserker warriors was not to be dismissed lightly. It would not pay to assume they were safe here, even if they were supposed to be.

'I have the humans, Einfari has the sea, and Nóttreiði the land?' Toothless proposed as they walked.

'Why do you get the humans?' Einfari asked.

'I know them a little better than you? You can listen to them while you watch the water; human ships are not fast, so that will not take all of your attention.'

Heather tuned out the discussion of her friends and Nóttreiði as the large Viking Chief drew within speaking distance. "Strafe us like that again, _dragon rider_, and your beast will get a stomachful of iron."

Maour shrugged that one off pretty easily, smiling sarcastically. "Had to get your attention somehow, and I suspect your men would try to make that threat a reality the moment we landed on your ship."

"That's a Night Fury," the other Viking observed. "You're right, we would do our best to kill it, tamed or not."

"Not." Maour stopped in the sand and crossed his arms. Heather took that as a cue to stop just short of standing by his side. She wanted these two belligerent men focused on Maour so that they would not focus on her at first. That would give her time to figure out what kind of men they were. If she was going to help Maour, she was going to be thorough about it.

"He's not tame," Maour continued. "Not trained. Not docile."

"Looks like a watchdog to me," Mogadon observed. "All three of them. Not trained," he scoffed. "Right. Whatever you think you're getting from that lie, it's not going to work. Now what did you want, Hiccup, and why should I care?"

Mogadon was a classic Viking Chief. All brawn, just enough brain to be annoyingly sure of himself, and not enough brain to consider anything outside of his views. Heather didn't know what Maour had planned, but he wasn't going to convince Mogadon to change anything about how he saw the world, so if he tried this was going to go bad, fast.

"Not my name," Maour corrected calmly. "And I gain nothing but you knowing the truth. But it doesn't matter. Mogadon, how fares your military?"

"Is that a threat?" the other Viking asked, putting a hand to the hilt of his large sword. The question was whether he planned on drawing it or just meant it as a symbolic gesture. Hard to tell, but Heather was going to go with the former.

"No, not at all," Maour replied. "_Hiccup _might have plenty of reason to dislike both of you, but as I have said, that is not my name, and I hold no ill will towards either of you."

"Plenty of reason?" Mogadon asked angrily.

"Past things." Maour shrugged. "Insults, using my weakness to dig at Stoick and lessen his honor, trying to propose I be set aside in favor of Snotlout at the yearly meetings… how are you liking Snotlout in charge now, by the way? You got your wish."

"Never mind that," Mogadon growled, looking angry. It seemed Maour had scored a point or two over him with that one. "What do you _want_? You interrupted our warm-up matches."

"Tonight, Bertha and I will have a deal to propose to your tribe, among others," Maour explained. "It's in your best interest to listen. My people bear you no specific ill-will, and I think we might have a few enemies in common. You will see."

"Common enemies… boy, the entire archipelago is your enemy, so that might just be true," Mogadon laughed. "And who's the silent woman with the Berserker longbow? Don't tell me you've managed to trick your way into a wife; I'd not believe that if I saw it."

That was Heather's cue to speak. She hadn't managed to help Maour at all, but this entire conversation looked to have been doomed from the start, so that didn't bother her so much. "I'm no such thing. Just proof he is far from standing alone." She wasn't sure how he had identified her bow as Berserker-made; she certainly hasn't seen any distinguishing markings. "And I took this off of a dead Berserker."

"Common enemies indeed," Mogadon repeated. "Maybe I'll hear you out tonight, and maybe I won't."

A horn sounded in the distance, blaring the same note over and over. Mogadon cast a truly hateful glare at Maour. "And now you've wasted my time. I was supposed to be warming up."

"For what?" Heather asked, knowing that she was more likely to get an actual answer.

"The duel of the Chieftains," the other man supplied. "It happens at every meeting. The Order-keeper takes any Chief who wants to participate out on his own ship, and they have a series of duels."

"Aye, and I'm in the running," Mogadon concluded, stamping a wide circle around Einfari and the other dragons, headed down the beach to the Order-keeper's ship. A small crowd was gathering there.

Maour watched him go. "I don't know what I expected, really, but a part of me thought that would go better."

"He wasn't in the mood to stand around and talk," Heather observed. "It went well enough considering you took him away from his precious warming up."

'And now there is going to be more fighting.' Einfari was watching the gathering crowd, many of which were setting up on the side of the hill. "Among Chiefs, so we cannot speak to the other one just yet."

"Maybe the Chief of the Waxears will listen if we wait until after the fight." Maour shrugged unhappily, walking back to Toothless and putting a hand on his side. "This feels a lot less likely to work than it did last night."

"But it's not any less likely; you're just discouraged." She totally understood that feeling. "Just press on. It's not like things can get all that much worse."

'Speaking of worse, do we want to risk going over there to watch?' Toothless asked hopefully. 'I'd like to see them fighting each other. From a safe distance, anyway.'

"If we do want to watch, we have to do it from the ground." Maour sounded sure of that. "Watching from the air is as good as saying we're afraid of everyone else, and not watching might be just as bad."

"So we need to go watch," Heather concluded. "I don't like the look of that crowd, but the top of the hill looks deserted, and we aren't limited by _our _eyesight.'

"The top of the hill is a good place," Maour agreed. "We can watch from there."

* * *

A series of duels between Chieftains. Paltry, worthless entertainment, if it ended at first blood drawn, which it did. Astrid joined Snotlout in actually boarding the Order-keeper's ship anyway, both because it was expected of her and because she wanted to see how Snotlout would do.

Not because she cared about him. Because his performance would affect how negotiations went later. She had to care about that, though it made her want to just take his place, which wasn't allowed.

What she _wanted _was to have Gobber and some of Dagur's soldiers knock Hiccup and his dragons out, along with the girl she vaguely recognized, bring them here, and then execute them, one by one. No combat, not fair chance; she wanted them tied down so she could make it hurt without any opposition.

But that wasn't going to happen. Even now, they were watching from the hill of the island, as far from danger as possible, like the cowards they were. She glared up at them, unsure whether or not they could see her. _Three _Night Furies and two riders, who were infinitely weaker but just as bad.

In time. Very little time. Tonight. She had a plan, a good one, and then another, one made with Dagur. If her personal plan failed, which it might, then she could fall back on the one made with Dagur. He would help; he wanted Hiccup dead just as badly, and he was infatuated with her.

She could use that. Would use that, to the fullest possible extent. Dagur had an armada, and Berk had a tiny fleet. The choice was obvious, and Dagur was freely offering her the option. Astrid had long since discarded loyalty by killing Stoick; Berk was just the place she currently held power in order to facilitate her hunts. She would let it burn if that got her more chances to kill dragons, to kill Night Furies.

There was a hearty cry from all around her; she only turned away from watching the distant watchers to see that Dagur had trounced Norbert the Nutjob. That was no surprise-

But the next matchup was, forcing Astrid to actually pay attention. Snotlout was finally up, facing Alvin the Treacherous. The two men entered the small circle inscribed on the deck, impatiently listened to the Order-keeper drone on about the rules, and then had at each other.

Alvin almost immediately took the upper hand, literally, by slamming his ax down at Snotlout's helmet. Snotlout almost dropped his sword in blocking that, and a short moment occurred in which the two men strained against each other.

"Ye definitely stabbed Stoick in the back, boy," Alvin gritted, a smile crossing his rugged and scarred face.

Snotlout visibly paled as Alvin took a hand off of the ax he was driving down, flaunting just how weak Snotlout was in comparison. It took all of Snotlout's strength to hold back Alvin.

"Because," Alvin drawled mockingly, "yer nothin' compared to him." His now free hand balled into a fist and punched Snotlout so had he dropped his sword, folding to the ground in a breathless heap.

Alvin immediately discarded his own ax and pulled Snotlout up, before socking him in the face. "I don' take kindly to you cuttin' off me and Stoick before we were square," he continued. "An'-"

"First blood," the Order-keeper intoned, pointing to Snotlout's crooked and dripping nose.

"Aw, come on," Alvin complained, shoving Snotlout back, "I was jus' getting started."

Astrid turned away, grimacing as she did. That was going to hurt Berk's reputation. Alvin had won with three hits, and nothing more. Given Astrid planned to intimidate a few of the Bog Burglar's neighbors into not intervening when she and Snotlout burned their island to the ground at some point in the near future, she had to care. Her work had just become a little more frustrating.

No problem. Her most important goals here did not rely on reputation. She turned back to watching Hiccup and his beasts. Eyes on the prey.

* * *

"Alvin seems to have an issue with Snotlout," Maour observed. "If the bloody nose and utter humiliation are anything to go by." That could just be the Outcast Chief taking advantage in Snotlout's inability to stand up to anyone of his size and skill in battle, but what Alvin had said the night before seemed to imply it was a more personal grudge.

"Maour," Heather called over from her seat on the other side of their little group, "can you read lips?"

"Not really," he answered, unsurprised she had asked. There had definitely been words exchanged between Snotlout and Alvin, but while the eyesight of Night Furies meant they had a great view, the same could not be said for hearing. "I haven't had much reason to learn that skill."

"I'll add it to the list," Heather said, speaking to herself.

'What list?' Einfari asked curiously. She was seated by Heather, with Nóttreiði on her other side. Toothless was perched next to Nóttreiði, and Maour was leaning up against him.

"Something Toothless told me to think about," Heather answered vaguely. Toothless purred contentedly at that reply.

'The insane female is back to staring at us,' Nóttreiði growled.

'You keep watching her.' Einfari nodded decisively. 'That is helpful. She is dangerous, and not distracted like everyone else.'

'She will try something sooner or later,' Toothless agreed. 'But everyone is either on that ship or sitting in plain sight down there,' he continued, glancing down the hill, where many Vikings argued, cheered, took bets, and generally spectated despite probably not seeing much of anything. The Order-keeper's announcements were just loud enough for them to hear, so they knew what was going on in the vaguest of terms.

"So you're saying we're safe for the moment?" Maour asked.

'Yes, for now. But I am not letting my guard down.' Toothless was as jumpy as Nóttreiði by now. It seemed Heather's asking after loopholes and then warning them of Berserkers who might be happy to die in the process of attacking had spooked him.

Those things had spooked Maour too, so he wasn't about to tell Toothless- or Nóttreiði, for that matter- to ease up. Things were not working out well so far today, and it would be par for the course for some Berserker to decide to take a stab at them when they were least expecting it. At least Dagur was definitely down on that ship, getting ready for the quarter-finals of the sparring tournament.

'The next match is starting. Mogadon against… who is that, again?' Einfari asked.

Maour focused on Toothless's vision and tried to get a good look. The constantly shifting crowd around the ring made it hard. "Aldir, I think?" The was thin and moved abruptly, which was pretty much all Maour remembered of the Chief of the Waxears from the night before. He at least seemed to be a pretty even match for Mogadon, which-

'Hey!' Toothless's vision suddenly swung around, disorienting Maour. Now, instead of the distant fight, he was looking at Toothless's tail.

"What is it?" Maour asked, returning to his own vision to physically turn around for himself. Sudden, unexpected shifts like that made his head hurt if he wasn't expecting them, but he was far more worried about what might have made Toothless yelp.

'My tail. I felt like something was tugging at the canvas of the false side,' Toothless explained, looking around. 'But there's nobody up here.'

Maour looked for himself, knowing Toothless was right. They were off to one side of the ring of logs and bonfire that would once again be put into use tonight, and there wasn't anywhere for a Viking, even a thin one like Astrid or Heather, to hide.

'So is there or is there not danger up here?' Nóttreiði growled impatiently. 'I am going to check.'

'Go ahead,' Toothless agreed, eyeing his own tail suspiciously. 'Maybe a bug?'

"Are there bugs up here?" Maour wasn't worried about Nóttreiði checking the immediate area; there really wasn't anywhere for anyone to hide. He moved over to check the prosthetic himself.

* * *

Nóttreiði didn't expect to find anything. He just wanted to move around a little. Watching that crazy female glare at them unsettled him a little. She reminded him of how he had acted toward Heather, though there were many differences, too. The constant, unvarying, unchanging hate was the same.

These logs were old and stained with foul-smelling liquid. Something of humans, probably. It smelled heady and intoxicating. The bonfire was old and cold, likely destined to be refueled if the humans planned on burning it again-

A small sound caught his attention. A rustling, from behind one of the closer logs. Maybe there was a small animal; a full-sized human would never be able to hide there.

If it was a small animal, he could kill and eat it. There was no rule against violence towards mindless little creatures who pestered his fellow dragon, even if he didn't care all that much about Toothless.

Nóttreiði rounded the log with a low growl, preparing a blast to-

A small, incorrectly-proportioned human was sprawled out on the ground behind the log, her body small enough to make that a sufficient hiding place for her. He forced the blast in the back of his throat to die away, knowing that to strike would be to commit several different atrocities.

Why, in all of his hating of humans, had he never considered what he might do if he stumbled across a human fledgling? It just had never come up. He didn't think he had even considered that such things might exist.

The human fledgling looked up at him with wide and mostly unfrightened eyes. Then it poked a paw up at him and put the other to its mouth.

'Einfari,' he called out, backing away, 'I do not know what to do with this.' He wanted no part in dealing with something like that. Keeping his cool was easy. He felt no desire to strike out at that, even if doing so would not have been death.

'With what?' Einfari and Heather came over to see what he was staring at. 'Oh, that. Heather?'

"Don't look at me; I never spent much time with kids," Heather replied. "Maour, we found the tail-puller."

"Don't talk about me like I'm not here!" the little human shouted, jumping up. Nóttreiði didn't hear it directly, but Einfari was translating for it too.

"You were at the meeting last night," Maour remarked, looking at the small human. "Kim, right? Aldir's daughter?"

Nóttreiði didn't know who that was. He was just glad Einfari and the others were taking this discovery off of his paws. It made him nervous for reasons he could not fully understand at the moment.

"Yes. You're the dragon rider from the stories, right?" the little human asked. Then she turned to Heather. "Or are you?"

"I'm the one in the stories," Maour agreed. "You don't seem all that afraid of us."

"Dad says you're dangerous, but he says everything is dangerous, and you _look _less frightening than everyone else here," was the response.

Now something was really bothering Nóttreiði. 'Is it male or female?' he asked, not sure why he cared.

'Female,' Toothless replied. 'Definitely, with how high her voice is. The hair is also a hint.'

A little female approaching this particular human and dragon, for she had gone right to Toothless, and doing so despite the warning of her worried father-

Nóttreiði didn't like the parallel his mind had just drawn. This human was nothing like Joy, even if it had just done something remarkably similar to what she had in years past, approaching Maour despite their father's warnings.

"We're not dangerous to good people," Maour responded kindly. "But pulling a dragon's tail is a good way to get hurt."

"Sorry," the little female replied. "But there's nothing to do around here. Everyone is busy watching something nobody can even see. I'm not allowed to watch anyway."

Now the parallels were becoming annoying. Nóttreiði walked over to the other side of the hill's summit, trying to drive them from his mind. So what if this human female happened to be a lot like Joy? It was human. He needed to be suspicious. What if this was the trick sent by the other humans?

He needed to be realistic. Would the humans send a fledgling to attack five adults? No. So this was just a harmless encounter with a human who bothered him far more than he wanted to admit, even to himself.

Nóttreiði cast a quick glance over his shoulder. The human was still there and showed no signs of leaving. So much for letting it go away and forgetting about it.

_**Author's Note: **_**In case anybody is wondering, we're going to pick up right here with the next chapter; this scene isn't actually over. I just decided to cut it here, at what would be a POV transition. (Also, this chapter expanded dramatically. I didn't even cover everything I planned to originally.)**


	24. Chapter 24

Toothless was entirely happy with this turn of events, now that he knew what was going on. The weird feeling of having his prosthetic fiddled with wasn't from some nefarious plot of Astrid or Dagur's and it wasn't even nothing, it was the perfect way to get on the good side of one of the Chiefs Maour was supposed to talk to today!

That was a little cynical, but Toothless didn't care. Maour had been discouraged by the admittedly unimpressive conversation with Mogadon, and this was a good way to bounce back from that. 'She's Aldir's daughter?' he asked happily, just to be sure. He definitely recognized this little girl from the previous night's round of introductions. Hopefully, Maour would make the connection.

"Yes, she is," Maour murmured. "I just said so."

'I was not listening,' Toothless flippantly replied, waving that little detail away. 'You know what we should do with her?'

'Throw her down the mountain?' Einfari suggested. Everyone who could hear her stopped what they were doing and stared at her. 'I'm kidding, obviously. It's also obvious that we should make friends with her and use that to approach the human Maour is supposed to be getting in good with.'

Toothless huffed and turned his attention back to Kim, who had eyes for him and him alone. He didn't know _why _she liked him and didn't even seem to care about the other two Night Furies present, but it was probably best he be the one to interact with her. Einfari was not as experienced with humans, and Nóttreiði was an all-around bad idea when it came to putting him and humans together. Though he _had _handled finding Kim far better than Toothless would have expected.

'Ask her if she wants to sit with us,' Toothless suggested. 'With me, specifically.'

"My brother wants to know if you want to sit with him," Maour offered, translating for him. "We're watching the fights, but-"

"Yes," Kim decided, hurrying over to Toothless. "He won't bite?"

Toothless showed his teeth and deliberately sheathed them.

"He's tame?" Kim asked, seeming to have second thoughts now that she was being invited, not sneaking a touch. What the logic behind that was, Toothless would never know. Now would surely be _more _likely to be safe than before.

"No," Maour replied. "No more than you are."

"I don't have claws," Kim retorted.

"He's not tame, he's friendly," Maour replied, getting back to the point. "Like you. So you are safe, but only because he doesn't hurt people for no reason, and doesn't want to hurt you. And the peace, but that doesn't make any difference right now."

Toothless patted a spot beside him with his tail. Maour had been sitting there, but it was all for a good cause.

Kim, after a final moment of hesitation, ran up and plopped herself down beside him. She was full of energy, for sure. Courage, too, though it came and went if one judged by her actions so far.

Toothless returned his eyes to the fighting on the ships, for Maour's benefit…

Actually, he would rather keep at least one eye on the human sitting right next to him. She might do something he needed to see. 'Maour, are you watching any of this fighting?'

"No," Maour replied, "so as long as somebody keeps an eye on Astrid and Dagur, which I think Einfari and Heather are doing, you don't need to watch."

'Good.' Toothless looked down at the little human girl beside him. 'I think I am going to need all of my attention.'

* * *

Maour had to laugh at some of the things Toothless and Kim got up to in the hour before the small tournament between chiefs ended. He hadn't really known his brother was good with children, never having a chance to see it.

At that, Toothless might not have known either. But by the way he so easily played with the girl, who lost all reluctance within minutes of sitting down next to Toothless, batting at her and eventually letting her chase him around the ring of logs surrounding the unlit bonfire, was very telling.

That was good, both for now and for later. Maour had not forgotten that at some point soon they would have two younger siblings to help care for. He didn't know if he would be any good at that, so it was reassuring to see that Toothless would be a natural. Between them, they could do anything, covering for each other's shortcomings.

That, however, was for later. For now, Maour tried to put his mind on what he and Toothless were here for. They needed to get Aldir's interest, and they needed to ensure the alliance Maour had entered into with Bertha became as strong as possible. Mogadon was probably not going to enter into it unless Bertha could do some persuading, and Maour didn't know how Bertha had done in approaching the Rockbreakers. The only other tribe they had deemed both likely to want to join and desirable to have join was the Waxears.

Maour needed to do this right. He needed to bring in at least one tribe. It would not be good if he failed on both, even if Bertha was probably succeeding with her side of things. His people _needed _some sort of buffer between themselves and Astrid or Dagur. It was up to him to get them one, here where it was actually possible to do so without violating any of the rules he had agreed to around the secrecy of his home.

So, when the fighting ended, Dagur apparently cheating more effectively than Alvin in the deciding bout, Maour made a decision. "Kim, your father is coming off of the ship now."

"So?" Kim asked petulantly, stopping to respond. Toothless slowed to a halt on the other side of the ring of logs, panting a little. Kim had gotten the idea to run _through _the circle instead of around, and in doing so had made their little chase a lot less one-sided.

"Do you want us to go down and see him when he gets back?" Maour asked, hoping the answer would not be a flat-out 'no'."

"No," Kim declared. "He'll just tell me to get away from the dragon, and I'll be in trouble. Everything else here is boring, anyway. I don't know why I came."

Maour didn't know why either. It was odd to the extreme to bring a young girl to something like this. She was the only person under the age of sixteen on the island by a fair margin, being at his guess no older than ten years of age, and possibly younger if how she acted was any indication.

'How about if she rode a dragon down to meet him?' Toothless suggested.

"I don't think she can work the prosthetic," Maour replied. What made Toothless think _that _would work?

'I'd be on paw, of course,' Toothless clarified. 'I don't have a death wish, if she could even get us into the air.'

"Right," Maour agreed, feeling a little foolish for not getting that immediately. "That could work."

"What could work? And why do you talk to him like that?" Kim asked impatiently. "I can't hear anything, so I know he doesn't really talk. You don't have to fake it."

Maour decided not to engage her on that misconception right now. She was not someone he had to convince of Toothless talking. "We were wondering whether you would like to ride Toothless down to meet your father. He and I need to talk, so he would find out we had met you in any case. That way, you can… make an impression." He was counting on her liking the idea of shocking her father more than worrying about his subsequent reaction to how she was going to show up.

"That sounds great!" Kim cheered, rushing right over to Toothless, who had walked up to them as they spoke. She clambered onto his back with absolutely no instruction, sitting sideways in the saddle after discovering it was too big for her to ride normally.

'Are all small humans this erratic and bold?' Einfari asked as Toothless took a few steps forward, intentionally jostling his new weight to be sure she could hold on.

"No, but some are," Heather replied. "This one's odd. I can't tell whether she's brave or just doesn't think before acting, let alone her age."

So Maour wasn't alone in not being able to figure out her age. Good to know. He waved a hand at the three spectators and followed Toothless down the hill. Aldir would be coming out of the crowd soon, and they would see him before he saw them, given he would probably be looking for a little girl, not three Night Furies.

* * *

Maour, along with Toothless, Kim, Heather, and the two Nótts, found Aldir, Chief of the Waxears, standing alone on the hillside, watching the still-present crowd around the ship. He didn't notice them, being more preoccupied with the ship.

Kim, once they were close enough, was not content to go unnoticed. "Look at me!" she cried, waving her arms in the air as Toothless steadily walked down the hillside toward Aldir. Maour was by his side, ready to try and catch Kim if she fell off, and the others were watching their back and flanks. Best to not let down their guard, even now.

"Kim?" Aldir yelled, turning and seeing them. "What are…" He trailed off, seeing what Kim was doing.

Maour was encouraged to see that Aldir didn't immediately reach for his sword or call for help, or even tell Kim to get down and run. The man instead cracked a wry, worried smile, and met them halfway down the hill.

"I made a new friend," Kim announced defiantly as he slowed to a stop a few steps away, down the hillside. She had to look down at her own father thanks to the combined boosts in height afforded by her position higher on the hill and by sitting on Toothless's back.

"Yes, you seem to have done exactly that," Aldir agreed. "But I remember asking you to _not _approach the Night Fury without me. We were going to ask if you could pet it," and at this, he shot Maour a quick embarrassed glance, "later. Tomorrow, maybe. Not today, and certainly not while I was busy with Chiefly duties."

"I got bored," Kim explained as if that was all the reason she needed. "He's nice."

"I see that," Aldir agreed, "as you are not dead. I'm sorry…"

"Svarturflugmaður," Maour supplied. He had wanted the Chiefs to use his formal name, as that was the one strangers were supposed to use.

"Svarturflugmaður," Aldir repeated. "I was going to approach you about whether it was safe for my daughter to…" He gestured helplessly at his daughter, who was still on Toothless's back. "Well, not even that. I guess it is safe."

"Totally, as long as she asks first," Maour confirmed. He wouldn't mention how she had originally approached them. There was no harm done, and he had no reason to want Kim in trouble with her father, or said father in a bad mood. "This is actually convenient. I was going to seek you out today anyway."

"Were you? About what?" Aldir seemed content to let his daughter remain on Toothless's back for the time being, which was another point in the man's favor. He didn't seem all that bothered by the dragons in front of him as long as he was assured they weren't hostile. Of course, that could just be a front put up to preserve his image.

"You said your village is cursed by Thor?" That was pretty much the entirety of the plan he had devised while waiting for Aldir to come back onto safe ground. Bring the man's daughter to him safe and sound, and ask after the weird request he had made the night before.

'Who is Thor?' Einfari asked curiously.

"Thor is definitely displeased with us, and always has been, yes," Aldir replied. "Do you know something that can help us?"

"I don't even know what you mean by displeased," Maour admitted. "But I'm curious. What makes you think that?" There might not be a reason, knowing how superstitious Vikings were.

"Lightning." Aldir pointed at the currently clear sky. "Every single storm, at least one bolt strikes the village somewhere. But that's nothing. Sometimes, Thor gets _really _mad, and we have a storm of lightning like nobody outside of our village has ever seen. I was off-island at the time, but the most recent such storm was less than two years ago, and they strike at least once a decade, for as long as anyone can remember."

"When you say like nobody has ever seen, what do you mean?" Maour was interested now.

"Bolts raining down like, well, rain. Balls of light floating through the air, passing through walls, and sometimes exploding. Also, there is no thunder at all. That kind of storm is not natural."

"Sounds like a Skrill to me," Heather supplied, breaking her silence. "Skrill lightning doesn't have any thunder to go with it."

'It… you know,' Toothless hummed thoughtfully, 'she's right, it doesn't. How did I not notice that?'

"A Skrill? I've never seen such a legendary dragon. And why would it attack us?" Aldir shook his head. "I'm thinking Thor, still. Dragons do not attack once a decade and steal no food in the process."

"You should at least give us the facts before making up your mind," Heather objected. "What does your village look like? Do your people do or have anything other tribes don't? What's your island like?"

"Lass, you speak like dragons will use reason in the first place," Aldir exclaimed.

'This is becoming a tiring issue,' Einfari growled. 'Can we just gather all of these simpletons and educate them all at once, to be done with it?'

Nóttreiði, who was busy watching their rear, growled. 'Or just stop trying to interact with them.'

"They can and do," Heather replied, ignoring the side comments from the Nótts. "And it's more likely than Thor taking offense at some random village and never even letting on what's making him mad."

"We built our village on the bottom of a circular valley, right next to two steep mountains, made of a slate of some sort," Aldir replied, evidently deciding to humor her. "Our island is mostly rock, and pretty much every patch of farmable land is used for farming. But we have plenty of iron, mined from the mountains. We build the frames of our huts out of the stuff, we have so much."

"There's nothing there that helps decide it either way," Heather admitted sourly. "But your big storms have no thunder, and Skrill draw lightning from the sky and redirect it with no thunder. The connection is obvious."

"I'm not saying it's not possible." Aldir seemed a little less skeptical. "But why?"

"Maybe they want the island," Maour offered. "Dragons have no trouble getting food or water, but a good place to live is less simple. That sounds like a place with a lot of storms and not much to accidentally set aflame."

"Aye, we do have plenty of normal storms, and the island is said to always have been that way. We hardly ever get more than two days in a row of clear skies."

'Skrill draw from storms, so a place like that could be a stronghold,' Nóttreiði suggested once Einfari had translated. 'Unlimited power in one's home seems like a valuable advantage.'

"It's probably Skrill seeking to take the island, then," Maour summarized. "That would be your main problem." The whole 'village is struck every single storm' issue could be chalked up to there being so many storms in the first place.

"It'd be fitting, given the Skrill are the symbol of the Berserkers," Aldir muttered. "But how do we fight them? We can't even see them."

"Well…" Maour shrugged his shoulders. "I'll let you know if I figure that out. We've had our own problems with Skrill, and they're no joke, even for us." He saw a way to wrap things around to the reason they were speaking in the first place. "Neither are the Berserkers. Bertha and I have a proposal for you tonight if you'd like to hear it. One that benefits all of us."

"A proposal…" Aldir eyed Heather and the dragons around Maour. "Aye, I'll be sure to hear it. Troubling times. I take it you weren't on the ship?"

"No, we were not," Maour confirmed.

"Then you didn't hear Dagur's victory speech," Aldir remarked darkly. "Dangerous times, these, and some of us don't want to throw our tribe at an impossibly strong enemy. Fair fights are better. Would this proposal make any hypothetical fight fairer?"

Maour stopped himself from jumping for joy, but only barely. "Yes, it might. Hypothetically. More than that, you'll have to wait for tonight to hear."

"I will definitely be there," Aldir agreed. "Kim, come on, we should go."

Kim crossed her arms, still sitting on Toothless's back. "I don't want to."

"If you come with me now, I'll ask Svarturflugmaður if you can… ride the dragon… again tomorrow," Aldir bargained, sounding like he knew just how uncomfortable a position he was in at the moment. Most Viking fathers would just order their daughter off of Toothless, or take her off by force when she refused. Aldir didn't seem to think the first would work and wasn't about to risk the second angering Toothless.

'I sense an opportunity here,' Toothless remarked, before looking at Aldir, nodding, and unceremoniously dumping Kim out of the saddle. She landed easily on the soft grass and shot him a look of outraged betrayal. 'Tomorrow, if she's good.'

Maour stifled a laugh. "Svarturkappi says she's welcome to find him tomorrow if she wants." He left out the part about her being good, as Aldir might have taken that as Toothless usurping his position and ordering around his daughter. Viking chiefs could be touchy about that sort of thing.

Aldir's face slowly went white as he tried to reason through what had just happened. Maour could guess at his exact train of thought. The 'tame' dragon had acted in response to his request without any sort of signal from Maour, and that meant said dragon understood human speech. That white face was the face of someone shown just how little they knew about the world.

"Great!" Kim exclaimed, entirely oblivious to her father's discomfort.

"Let's go," Aldir managed, catching her hand and leading her away. He looked back over his shoulder several times as he left.

"He might be the most reasonable Chief I've ever met," Heather announced. "That went really well."

'Aside from finding out one of our potential allies is plagued by Skrill, yes,' Einfari agreed. 'We should never go to his island.'

'Never,' Nóttreiði snarled. 'Unless we go to hunt them down.'

'Are you saying we should do some humans a favor?' Toothless asked, immediately jumping on that.

Nóttreiði took a quick break from watching their surroundings to glare at Toothless. 'I am saying that since Skrill hunt us, we should kill any we can find so that they will not kill anyone we care about in the future.'

'That's less of an improvement than I had hoped,' Toothless admitted. 'But you are keeping your cool here. I am impressed.'

Nóttreiði didn't seem to know how to take that. 'Good,' he eventually replied, returning to his surveying of their surroundings.

Maour definitely noticed Heather's annoyed grimace, an expression shot at him for a single moment. He didn't need to be reminded that she had warned him Nóttreiði's attempts at changing were fake. Did she think he would fall for it?

Well, yes, because it was amazingly convincing. Maour believed there was some genuine remorse mixed into whatever other motivations Nóttreiði had for acting as he was. He _wanted _to believe Nóttreiði was trying to change.

As long as Nóttreiði remained peaceful here, it didn't matter whether he was faking his remorse. Maour let that end his speculation. They had more important things to handle here, and the afternoon was wearing on as they spoke. It would soon be sunset, and that meant it would also soon be time to see whether or not his attempts at getting Mogadon and Aldir to listen to him and Bertha would bear any fruit.

* * *

Astrid stalked over to the largest of the many tents her tribe had pitched and quickly located Snotlout inside, holding a ragged, stained shirt to his nose. He was lucky that bloody nose had ended the fight. If it hadn't, he'd probably be unconscious right now.

It was doubly lucky for him that he wasn't unconscious; she needed to let him know what he was going to be doing tonight, because her own, more personal plans were going to take him away from her side, where she had originally planned to handle all of the important affairs for him. He was a puppet, in the end. An annoying, disagreeable one only kept around because he was easy to order around.

But that advantage was nothing compared to what she was being offered by Dagur. She had already made up her mind on that score; it was the more personal part of his offer that she would fight off as long as she could manage if that didn't impede the rest.

If she wanted to… Sometimes, when her mood swung, she found she didn't want to. But it was for the best in regards to her hunting capability that she not let him do anything… rash. Not with her.

"Astri'?" Snotlout mumbled. The shirt muffled his words.

"Listen up," Astrid commanded, crouching in front of him. "Tonight, ignore the Bog Burglars. Don't agree to anything with the Meatheads, Rockbreakers, Lava Louts, or Waxears." Those were the weakest tribes, and the ones Dagur had probably referenced when he spoke of 'clearing the archipelago of those incapable of standing in his way' in his victory speech after defeating Alvin the Treacherous. She didn't want Berk allied with any of them.

"Visithugs?" Snotlout asked.

"If they want a trade deal, agree to think about it and get back to them tomorrow." She wanted to tell him where he could stuff that stupid rag and his relatively weak tribe, but until it was official, she couldn't burn any bridges with Berk. For the good of the hunt.

"Outcasts?"

"Ignore them. But when Dagur comes to you with a proposal involving me…" She turned away, using the movement to mask taking her ax out, and then whirled on him, pointing the tip at him. "When he tries to bargain for my hand, give it to him. I don't care what the brideprice offer is, take it, and agree to deal with my family for him." She wanted the Berserker armada, and that was the fastest way to get it. As for her family? She hadn't so much as spoken to her parents in three years. They knew where she stood on them. If Dagur wanted her, he would be trying to get her tonight, as this was the night of deals, and she was willing to let him make that move in his so-called 'hunt' for her.

Snotlout's eyes widened as he considered what that would mean. "You got it!" he cried out. She didn't know whether he was happy or intimidated, and she didn't care, because the end was the same, and one he would work towards.

That was the aggravating part of tonight done. She left Snotlout's tent in a hurry, heading for her ax-cleaning kit, which was in her own tent, and the stake she had been sharpening to a perfect point whenever she had any free time. Tonight, she might manage to kill a Night Fury, finally. It was fitting her first kill would be in a place of supposed peace. Somehow. She didn't know how, or why she felt it was, but it just was.

A small, disturbed chuckle rose from her as she hefted the stake. Tonight was going to be a good night.

* * *

Heather was well aware that she was here to observe, above all else. Her desire to help Maour secure allies had led to very little she could actually do, and Dagur was a temptation she had managed to not so much as run into yet.

Observing was her job, and there was only one spot available at the actual meeting of Chieftains at the top of the hill. Maour got to bring one person, and the night prior he had brought Toothless. He would again, which meant she, Einfari, and Nóttreiði were not going to be present.

In theory. In practice, the night was cloudy, Night Fury eyes were good, and their wings were swift and silent. Nobody was _supposed _to be up by the top of the hill except the Chiefs, their seconds, and the Order-keeper, but nobody could possibly notice Einfari and Nóttreiði flying in low circles outside of the relatively short range of the bonfire, listening in.

Except Toothless, that was, but he and Maour knew about this plan and had approved it. They agreed that it was impossible for anyone to notice what Einfari had proposed, and even if anyone did notice, there was no way they would be successfully attacked, because they would be flying surprisingly far out, given the maximum range was how far away Einfari could hear things from.

"You have great ears," Heather said, complimenting Einfari. It was well-deserved; they were just getting into the air, the sun having finally set entirely, and while Heather couldn't hear anything distinct herself, tapping into Einfari's sense of hearing provided a much louder, clearer, and distinct perception of the sounds of Chiefs arriving and settling down to await the official lighting of the bonfire.

'Even among Night Furies,' Nóttreiði agreed. If there was one thing they both genuinely met on, it was that Einfari was great. Heather didn't suspect for a moment that he was agreeing out of any desire other than to compliment his sister. It was the sort of thing he wouldn't say on his own, but would definitely agree with because it was true.

At least, that was how she saw him as being. He was becoming a tiny bit less opaque to her now, since she was getting glimpses into who he was, as in order to fool Einfari he had to act as he normally would were Heather not present and nothing wrong. That was so twisted Heather almost couldn't believe it, but she was dealing with Nótts, and getting good at it.

"Toothless, help me out here and tell Maour to start talking," Einfari requested, making her mental voice more akin to a mental shout. Heather didn't know why or how volume worked with mental voices, but she wasn't about to question it. Questioning stuff like that was like asking for it to stop working as it should. Others could look into the 'how' and 'why'. That wasn't her concern. Her concern was 'what', as in, 'what can this be used for?'

On the subject of what it could be used for… Einfari began to circle inward on the hill, slowly lessening the distance between her ears and the growing noise of the small crowd on top of said hill.

"So, Bertha, any luck with Sigvard of the Rockbreakers? I think I got Aldir of the Waxears interested, but Mogadon is going to be a little harder."

Heather grinned as she picked Maour's voice out. It might be something with Einfari's ears, but she was finding it much easier to hear individual voices against the backdrop of everyone else who talked.

'Got him,' Einfari purred. 'Brother, how safe are we right now?'

"Anything they could throw from there, I could shoot out of the air. I'm watching them all, and since we are constantly circling, it is going to be nearly impossible for me not to notice anyone who sees us. This is very safe,' Nóttreiði admitted.

'If anyone could even see us to start with,' Einfari added. 'Look, they've just ruined their night vision by lighting that fire.'

Heather smiled even wider at that. Now there was nothing to worry about at all. Black dragons in a black, starless night, constantly circling and making absolutely no noise, above a small group of people who had better things to do than stare at the sky, and no night vision to boot.

Time to actually concentrate on what was going on. Heather took note of the fact that Astrid was off to the side, speaking to a weedy man, and Snotlout was looking around aimlessly. Dagur was arguing, it seemed, with the man she had heard called Norbert the Nutjob, and he certainly looked the part at the moment, matching Dagur crazy look for crazy look. All three were out of the way for the moment, and not even looking over at Maour and Toothless.

Maour and Toothless, meanwhile, were seated next to Bertha and Camicazi, while Mogadon and Aldir made their way over. Mogadon had the same young man with him from earlier, but Aldir didn't have Kim, which was a small shame. Then a large man with what looked like a pickaxe stomped up, dropping his ponderous weight on one of the currently empty logs next to Bertha. That would be Sigvard.

"Good to see you all could make it," Bertha said, beginning the discussion. "Svarturflugmaður and I have a proposition for you all."

"Make it fast," Mogadon grunted. "I'm only here because Norbert is occupied at the moment. The second he stops arguing with that power-hungry lunatic, I'm gone."

"Power-hungry, indeed," Maour replied neutrally. "I hear Dagur has been talking about wiping the smaller, less thoroughly armed tribes off the map." He made eye contact with each of the four men for a moment. "Some wouldn't call that a fair fight."

"Some wouldn't worry about it," Mogadon retorted. "What are you, scared?"

"No, not at all, because he'll have to search for a very long time to have any hope of finding the people I care about," Maour bluffed. Heather knew that wasn't true; Berserkers had set foot on the Isle of Night already, though they didn't know that. "But I don't like the big guy picking on the little ones. Especially when the big guy is insane and sadistic."

"You wouldn't," Mogadon's second scoffed.

"Thuggory, do I have to steal your helmet again?" Camicazi, Bertha's daughter, offered idly. "Listen to those of us with more brainpower." Heather knew her because she was a pretty well-known figure among the tribes of the archipelago, as were the Bog Burglars. She also knew they were already allied with said tribe, thanks to Maour filling them all in on the state of things that morning, but she had yet to actually meet Camicazi or Bertha.

"I, for one," Aldir announced, "want to hear how you propose to level the playing field."

Maour nodded in agreement. "Here's what I see happening. The Berserkers are a big threat to any of us, one we can't hope to totally defeat or even hold out against if they come at us in force. Berk, their allies, will probably help them or just up and attack on their own. Astrid's pulling the strings, and she's not stable at all."

"You've identified the two big dangers," Sigvard agreed gruffly. "My tribe likes to make things, not have them plundered from us. We'll fight, but we'll also lose if Dagur wants us gone."

"We'd hold out," Mogadon blustered. Heather was pretty sure everyone, including him, knew that wasn't true, but nobody was going to call him on-

"Mogadon, a dozen warships do not defeat upwards of seventy," Bertha remarked firmly. "If I thought you were stupid enough to believe that, I would not have suggested we extend this offer to you."

"The offer," Maour said loudly, his voice aided in calling attention by a subtle growl from Toothless, "is one of mutual defense against those two enemies. They can pick us off one by one, but if we sent a portion of our strength to aid whichever of us they go for first, we can head them off and cause serious damage instead of being overwhelmed separately."  
Heather, constantly circling on Einfari, noticed that Camicazi had gotten up and was sneaking around to each of the Chiefs, doing something. What she was doing wasn't clear, and nobody else noticed, not even the Chiefs in question.

"A time-honored strategy, letting others whittle 'em down for you," Sigvard agreed. "We can do that equally well without any sort of alliance. If Dagur goes for someone else first, I have to face a slightly smaller armada."

"You're thinking about it the wrong way," Maour immediately countered. "It's not a 'one ship for one ship' deal. If seventy ships attack ten, they'll lose one or two and all ten will be destroyed. If seventy ships attack forty, they'll still only lose maybe half a dozen, or at best a dozen, because you'll be hopelessly outnumbered."

"But," and here his voice grew less dire, "if seventy ships sail against someone's island, only to face forty or so ships, and a coordinated strike force of Night Furies to whittle them down before they ever see the actual fleet… it's a fair fight. More than fair, with coordination and strategy."

Heather noticed how Maour never actually committed more than two dragons in that offer. She knew she and Einfari would make the other pair of fighting Dagur was on the table, so he wasn't offering anything she and him couldn't fulfill. It was likely the pack would accept this and make it apply to all of them, but not guaranteed, and Maour was a man of his word, however careful that word might have to be to get anything done.

"Night Furies…" Aldir sounded very interested. "I assume you have ideas as to the specifics?"

"Bertha and those I speak for are already allied in this manner, so we have a whole treaty written up, which you will find somewhere on you already, courtesy of Camicazi," Maour suggested, patting his flight suit down. "Possibly well-hidden, though." Toothless passed him a slightly slobbery copy of the treaty, having found it in his saddle. "Thanks."

'So that is what she was doing,' Einfari laughed. 'This is going well.'

Heather liked her friend's almost uncharacteristic enthusiasm, but she didn't share it. Having the entire thing already written up was a bold move that was going to get under the skin of some of the Chiefs because it was basically saying Maour saw no need to take their input on the specifics. If the treaty was anything less than perfect, Mogadon would probably demand edits, and that would lessen Maour's reputation, if only a little, because he would have to comply. A small thing, but this entire meeting was based on small things. Vikings might not be subtle, but that didn't mean they wouldn't maneuver if it was required.

'Dagur is speaking to the human the crazy female is allied with,' Nóttreiði remarked. 'You should turn your attention to that.'

'He's right,' Einfari agreed. 'Maour has this, or does not, and we are not going to affect the outcome. We should figure out what those two have to talk about.'

"Not much if Astrid isn't there," Heather reasoned. "You're right, though." They could do more good spying on the enemy than spying on friends.

Einfari's line of sight, and therefore Heather's, shifted to focus on Dagur and Snotlout. Snotlout's nose looked crooked, but he was talking confidently enough. If Heather strained, she could make them our, Dagur easier than Snotlout.

"Thirty gold coins, and that's my final offer," Dagur said angrily. "I'll gut you if you don't take it."

"Forty," Snotlout countered. "You can't gut me here, and if we leave without this deal, you'll only find the price to be higher later."

"He talks a big game, but he sweats a much smaller one," Heather murmured. Snotlout was not as calm as he was trying to appear. Nobody would be, bargaining with Dagur, but he was _really _nervous. What were they discussing?

"Thirty-five, and I get the crippled one who acts as her assistant," Dagur retorted.  
"That's not my call, but for thirty-eight, I'll let him go if he wants to," Snotlout offered.

"I should gut you right here and now," Dagur grumbled petulantly. "Thirty-eight, she gets the chance to bring the cripple, and you let me punch you in the face at our next meeting, wherever that is."

"You know what?" Snotlout declared. "Deal, as long as I get to punch you back, and it doesn't end up being a duel." He made it sound like he was being generous, but Heather could tell he was conceding out of nerves. He _really _wanted this to go through, even if he was willing to talk up the price.

"Done," Dagur laughed, sticking out his hand for Snotlout to shake. They clasped hands, both appearing to be trying their hardest to break bones in the other, and then Dagur left, laughing maniacally to himself.

'So… do we know what that was about?'

"It sounded like they were selling a slave," Heather reasoned. "The problem with that is that neither tribe keeps slaves." The Berserkers didn't, one of the few areas in which they were legitimately less terrible than other tribes, though they based that lack on Viking pride and not wanting to get lazy, not any sort of moral compass. Only the Visithugs really dealt in slaves as an ongoing trade, and that was because they raided outside the archipelago, and thus had ample chance to pick them up without angering their immediate neighbors.

'What is a slave?' Einfari asked curiously. Her voice was light because she didn't know what she was talking about.

Heather tried to think of an easy way to explain it, and to her surprise realized she had one. One Nóttreiði couldn't hear. So, she lowered her voice to a whisper, more to indicate that Einfari shouldn't translate than to hide her own words from Nóttreiði, as he wouldn't understand. "You know your father's story, about his terrible experiences as a captive? He was bought and sold. A slave is a prisoner bought and sold, and forced to obey whoever owns them. They have no rights and no hope."

Einfari rumbled in deep, terrible anger. 'And they do this to humans, too. They _have _to know it is terribly wrong.'

"Yes, they do." Heather didn't know and didn't care what rationalization people would use to defend the practice. She had issues with being denied freedom in any way, more so since she had become allied with people who also had the same kind of problem.

'But you think that is not it,' Einfari continued. 'So what were they discussing?'

"I don't know." She only thought that wasn't it because Berserkers and Berkians didn't keep slaves. Maybe they were changing that. It wouldn't surprise her, given the current leadership of both islands. That was something to keep an eye on. Changes in the state of their enemy's capabilities were important to track.

For the moment, though, there was nothing left to hear. Einfari turned her attention back to Maour and the Chieftains he was speaking to without Heather having to ask.

"I want the location," Mogadon was growling. He waved his copy of the treaty at Maour angrily. "For all I know, this 'Isle of Night' does not exist, or is on the edge of the world. I will not pledge to possibly defend a place I can't find on a map."

"I cannot give you the location right now," Maour said calmly. He sounded like he was not saying any of this for the first time. "You have my word that it exists, and common sense indicates it is close enough that Dagur or Astrid _could _find it if they tried hard enough. It is not on the edge of the world." He was skirting around the restrictions on location well enough at the moment.

"I, for one, have no problem not knowing where," Sigvard grunted. "I want to know how we get into contact."

"Night Furies fly faster than ships sail," Maour remarked dismissively. "Much, much faster. Rest assured, I'll be keeping tabs on my enemies no matter what happens here. If we are allied, I will know you are under attack with time to spare. Possibly before you do."

"The Berserkers do nothing without announcing it to the world first," Aldir added. "Time for news to travel will not be an issue, and the rest of us live relatively close to each other. I do not see that being a problem."

"So we trust you to hold your end of the bargain, trust this island exists, trust you to know… Boy, we do not trust that strongly," Mogadon objected.

"Let me put it this way," Maour tried. "If I do not hold my end of the bargain, if I disappear tonight and none of you ever see me or a Night Fury again, which I _won't_, what happens? You still have a defensive alliance against an enemy you all know you'll be fighting anyway, alone or together. Together gives you a chance, and alone means you lose. You have nothing to _lose _from entering into this, and everything to gain, whether or not I am true to my word, which I am."

"He speaks sense," Sigvard admitted. "This will work with or without him. I'd rather it be with him, but I want in either way."

"Aye, and so do I," Aldir agreed.

Bertha smiled coyly at Mogadon. "So, it looks like you can join in or be left out."

"Fine," Mogadon grunted. "Where do I sign?"

Einfari let out a long, slow sigh as the Chiefs all began signing the many copies of the treaty. "I feel this is a good thing, but it is also a change. Our pack lives anonymously. It's how we survive. Now we cannot, not entirely."

'The pack still has the choice to not join in on this,' Nóttreiði offered. 'Toothless and Maour speak only for themselves until the pack agrees they are part of this 'Isle of Night'. Or have I been misinformed?'

'You're right, they can still say no, but they won't, because, with this kind of force, we stand a chance of destroying our enemies and having allies,' Einfari reasoned. 'Maour and Toothless know that. They have given us the chance to enter into the politics of humans as something other than animals, and we would be fools not to take it. It is a risk, but one worth taking.'

'Something will go wrong. Those "allies" you speak of do not know who they have bargained with. Most would kill Toothless given a chance. Once they realize Maour speaks for a pack of dragons, not a pack of humans subjugating a pack of dragons, it will all come crumbling down.'

'And we will be better off than before even then,' Einfari retorted. 'You _know _we will never trust them not to turn on us, so if they do, we will not be caught. And in the meantime, we will work with them to eliminate the bigger threat, leaving us with a few small threats instead. None of which know where we live, meaning we have lost nothing.'

Nóttreiði had no response to that, surprisingly enough. Heather would have expected him to resort to the whole 'humans are all bad' argument that had been his fallback in the past. But, of course, he couldn't use that anymore, whether or not he still believed it. His disguise of trying to change made that a bad choice.

Enemies as allies against a greater threat, enemies that may or may not be enemies in the future. Heather wondered if Nóttreiði knew how similar he was to their new allies in that way.

* * *

'That went very well,' Toothless purred. Mogadon and Aldir were just leaving, Mogadon heading for Norbert, and Aldir for nowhere in particular. Both seemed satisfied.

Maour smiled lightly, knowing he couldn't look too happy with any of this, though it would make no big difference now. "It really did," he agreed. There had been plenty of dicey moments, mostly thanks to Mogadon's belligerent attitude, but it was done. Dagur would face a united front if he came for them, and so would Astrid, though most of the Chiefs had seemed to consider her and Berk an afterthought. Maour knew better.

"Most I've ever gotten done in an hour," Bertha mused, looking at her own copy of the treaty. "Any chance you can tell me where you live now?"

"None," Maour regretfully replied. "It's not up to me." He didn't want to, either. The Bog Burglars were allies, and Bertha was a friend, but that information was just too dangerous to give out to anyone.

"I have a different request," Sigvard announced, standing from his log seat. He pointed a large finger at Maour. "What's on your back? Nobody seems to know, and I want to see it."

"This?" Maour took his scythe out. "Nobody knows because I made it." He spun it in a partial circle and stopped it to open the spikes, and then handed it over. "Mind the sharp edges."

Sigvard very carefully looked it over, paying special attention to the metal. "I've never seen the wood, but I _do _know the metal."

"You do? I don't." He had gotten it from the smith on Mahelmetan, and she had gotten it from someone else. It was light and strong, far better than iron, and that was all he knew.

"Aye, we import all sorts of metal," Sigvard explained, handing the scythe back with an air of reverence. "This stuff has no name, it's so rare, and it's more than worth its weight in gold. This thing must have cost you an arm and a leg, to have so much of that metal, and with such craftsmanship."

'Tell him we made it,' Toothless suggested eagerly.

"I was planning to," Maour reassured him. "The metal cost me as much as iron would, and my brother and I made this weapon." It was rare he got a chance to show off their skill at designing and making things to someone who also knew the craft. Shadow and Cloey always showed interest in his latest inventions, but they didn't have the background to really get what they were looking at.

"We're being ripped off, then," Sigvard complained lightly. "That's a weapon for a Chief. Assuming he can use it without killing himself. Too bad we can't get a demonstration here."

"Too bad," Maour agreed, glad he wouldn't have to turn down an invitation to go out onto Sigvard's ship. He could only trust so far, and that was trusting his life. Not an acceptable risk in order to appease somebody's curiosity.

"But I'm sure I'll see it someday," Sigvard continued. "Bertha, I was wondering what you would think of a trade deal between us, as we're now allies."

"Defensive only," Bertha qualified, "but what do you have in mind?"

Maour knew that was his cue to get up and mingle, like it or not. Yet another thing that had to be done, or else he would look weak.

Wait, did that matter any longer? They were done here. He and Toothless could leave tonight, and it wouldn't matter. Everything he could hope to accomplish had happened.

But… they should probably stay until the end of the third day. The third night was the time for big announcements, which included wars being declared. Maour needed to be there to represent his commitment to aiding in the defense of the Bog Burglars, Rockbreakers, Meatheads, or Waxears as necessary.

"Did I just commit us to destroying Dagur's entire armada?" Maour murmured to Toothless. They walked out to stand by the bonfire, so as to have something behind them. Einfari would mentally warn them if anyone was sneaking up on them, but it was best to be careful.

'Yes, you did,' Toothless replied, 'but we were going to have to do that anyway. Now we have way more breathing room to do it, and allies no matter what. You have paid for our family's safety with that commitment.'

"Thanks for putting it into perspective. I know you're with me, and Heather will be if Einfari can wiggle her way into helping. Hopefully, the whole pack will see the right choice is joining us."

'They will.' Toothless sounded certain, which was something Maour envied. He wanted to be that sure. 'Maour, do we have to be here any longer?'

"We should stay until the end of the third night, at least," Maour replied.

'Okay, but I mean here, on this hill, right now. We are attracting attention, and there is nothing left to gain for us.'

"Sadly, yes." If he had his way, they would already be up in the air. But the game needed to be played until it was over.

'One of them is approaching us,' Toothless continued. 'One I do not like the look of.'

Maour switched over to Toothless's vision for a moment, judging that to be a faster way of picking out the one Viking Toothless was worrying about, and saw a smaller man with a black mustache approaching from the side.

Well, that was easy enough to counter. Maour switched back to his own sight and turned, pretending to notice the man. "Yes?"

The man stopped walking but did not seem at all perturbed by being caught. "I'd like to speak to you in private." He glanced at Toothless. "Your lizard can, of course, accompany us if you feel the need."

Maour didn't like this guy already. "We can speak here. It might not be a good idea to be seen leaving the gathering together. Rumors can be dangerous." Total yak-dung, but it was a good excuse.

The man wrung his hands and stepped closer, lowering his voice. Almost a little too close, but Maour wasn't about to show weakness. "This is not a matter to be discussed in the open," the man whispered conspiratorily.

Toothless spoke to Maour. 'If he cares, I can block you two off with my wings.'

Maour smiled. "Yes, that should work." He turned to the man. "Svarturkappi has it covered. Well, he has us covered, anyway."

Toothless sat up, and extended his wings forward and around the two, creating a head-high black wall. He looked over his shoulder. No one noticed his actions or seemed to care. They were all busy arguing or negotiating.

The man had visibly flinched when Toothless moved. Now he looked at the wings impassively. He spoke to Maour. "Impressive."

Maour knew what the man meant, but he decided to reply as if he did not. "He just spread his wings. As impressive as you or me stretching."

The man shook his head. "No, the level of control you exhibit. And that is why I am here, on the behalf of my chief, Duncar the Dilapidator, of the Visithugs. How much for the knowledge on how to control dragons? We are a very wealthy people, in gold, treasure, and slaves."

Maour scowled. "I want none of those things. But even if I did, I couldn't sell that knowledge, because I already give it away freely. There is no control here." He wasn't willing to drag this out any longer, now that he knew what the man wanted. "So we have nothing to discuss."

At that, Toothless retracted his wings and growled at the man, laughing loudly when the man flinched.

"Name your price," the man insisted, no longer bothering with stealth.

"There is no price." Maour raised his voice, just to drive home what he was about to say. "I have no secret knowledge about how to control dragons, and wouldn't sell it if I did!"

"No need to shout," the man grumbled, backing away. He seemed distinctly aware of the hostile eyes turned toward him from every direction. Maour had outed his Chief's intentions, though that hadn't been his intention at the moment. "Come to us if you ever… change your mind."

Maour felt the distinct urge to groan in frustration, but he held it in. "Like beating my head against an army of stone walls," he complained to Toothless.

Then he spotted a much larger, less subtle figure approaching them. In his annoyance, he spoke his mind, calling out to the man. "No Alvin, I don't like Snotlout, but I have absolutely no interest in taking my 'rightful place' as chief there, with or without your help. I have no interest in fighting you in Stoick's stead either. And finally, I will under no circumstances tell you anything I haven't just told Lewin over there, and I'm pretty sure you could hear that. Does that cover everything you were about to ask?"

Alvin the Treacherous stopped a good ten paces away, completely pre-empted. He thought about it. "Aye, it does." He turned around and walked back the way he had come.

Toothless chortled happily. 'That was great.'

Maour smirked, feeling some of his frustration evaporate. "I took a guess, but it wasn't hard to know what he wanted. Vikings are really predictable. Especially Alvin, because his motives and methods are obvious. I'm not actually sure why he even tries. I mean, he does have the word 'Treacherous' in his name." Maour thought about that. "Actually, this is probably the only time anyone makes deals with him. Even he probably won't break deals made here. So never mind, this is the only time he even has a chance."

'Will he be mad about you blowing him off like that?'

"He _should _be, but he didn't seem mad at all." Maour shrugged his shoulders. "So… no?" He wasn't sure what to think of Alvin. The man had quite the reputation for being terrible, but here he was just another Chief and acted like it. He definitely wasn't the worst person present.

* * *

Astrid watched Hiccup and his Night Fury closely from the other side of the hilltop, feigning interest in nothing in particular. As soon as they were alone, she would begin. This might not work, but she was betting-

There. Lewin, the altogether unimpressive lackey of Duncar the Dilapidator, had gone, and Alvin had been totally stymied. Nobody was looking toward them, and that meant nobody would interfere. Time to try her luck and hopefully get one or both of them killed.

_**Author's Note: **_**I actually didn't intend to leave this one here, but I don't want to pass over 10,000 words, as that will make some of the shorter chapters too short in comparison, so have fun with where this ends. (For reference, my rule of thumb is to take my minimum chapter length and double it to find the absolute maximum. Here, the minimum is, or should be, 5,000 words, so the maximum is 10,000, barring the occasional exception where absolutely necessary.)**

**Also, this story is totally diverging from the first draft I'm rewriting at this point. In the first draft, the Rockbreakers weren't involved, Astrid and Dagur were playing nice (as in not plotting to get around the rules, which is totally OOC for both of them), we had a big conversation between Maour and Trott of the Lava Louts (we might still see that one later), and Maour had shown off his skill with his weapon at least twice by this point, because the peace for some reason didn't extend to sparring, and to top it all off, Nóttreiði was playing even nicer than he was in this version, and meant it. All of that is totally different here.**

**On another note, some of you may have noticed something about Aldir's little lightning problem. Maour and Toothless don't know about lightning being attracted to metal (which is obviously what's going on with the normal, if frequent, strikes). Who knows if they'll ever figure it out. (Who am I kidding, there's no way we've seen the last of Skrill and thunderstorms, the foreshadowing couldn't be more obvious).**

**One more little fun fact: The first draft didn't have any POV from Astrid or Dagur while we were on this island. In rewriting, I decided to bring in some of that, and realized that those were the most fun to write of any of this. That bodes well, given we're certainly not done with either of them. I'm looking forward to where all of this goes, and starting Monday, I'm back into consistent wifi, so there is also that.**


	25. Chapter 25

_**Author's Note: **_**This was supposed to go out last Thursday, but life slapped me in the schedule sooner than it was supposed to. Sorry! The next one **_**will **_**go out on time this Thursday.**

Toothless _knew _the peace of this island wouldn't hold perfectly. He had heard Heather's convoluted scenarios about how it could be totally breached by a prepared Chief, but his worries were far simpler. One did not trust madmen, or madwomen, to hold to anything. Every hour spent here was an hour spent within reach of enemies, peace or not.

But the hours did need to be spent here, so he held in his worry and focused it into a very healthy kind of temporary paranoia. Any human that came within ten feet could be the one to try and end his life or the life of his brother. There was no attacking first, but there was also no relaxing. Not even now, after Maour had verbally driven off both of the men intent on approaching them. Toothless saw no threats coming from any direction, and he could see every direction but directly on the other side of the fire, which was not somewhere anyone could attack from.

His biggest concern, in any case, was not being snuck up on. It was Maour being approached under the guise of discussion and then stabbed somewhere vital without any sort of warning. Maour talking to or even getting within arm's reach of any of these Chiefs was a dangerous proposal... but one that Maour could not avoid without making the other humans all think he was weak. Intelligent caution didn't seem like a weakness to Toothless, but what he thought didn't matter to these people. Most still believed he did not think any more than an animal would.

'Astrid is coming around the fire, headed your way.' Einfari's mental voice was loud, but Toothless knew he and Maour would be the only ones to hear anything. Nobody else even knew she was up above, circling in the dark, and she hadn't roared, which was the normal, entirely audible counterpart to a loud mental voice.

The important part of the message, however, was not how it was delivered. Toothless could not tense up any more than he already was, so he settled for pulling Maour in with his tail. 'We should go.' Astrid was insane, and Toothless knew it was a bad idea to talk to her.

"I want to, believe me," Maour agreed quickly, his tone suggesting he knew Toothless wasn't going to like what came next, "but to flee is to show weakness, and we can't afford to do that here."

'Why not?' Toothless still didn't entirely get that. 'What happens if we do?'

"We are not respected, other tribes will be less likely to want to deal with us, and if anyone has a problem with what we are," which Toothless knew meant almost everyone here, "they'll be more likely to act on that. We can't make any more enemies." Maour looked over at the left side of the bonfire, and then the right. They were standing close to the fire, but it was big, and Astrid wasn't in sight yet. "Be on guard, but don't strike first. We have to see what she intends."

'Fine. Same goes for you,' Toothless called out at Heather, Einfari, and Nóttreiði. 'Don't strike!' He didn't think Nóttreiði would be particularly motivated to fire on the behalf of him or Maour, but it was always good to not assume anything when dealing with the Nótts.

Then Toothless saw Astrid, creeping out from around the right side of the bonfire. Perfect. He could put himself between her and Maour. Maour could mostly take care of himself, but Toothless had a lot more bulk and physical protection, so if one of them was going to take a strike from the ax Astrid carried, he wanted to be the one, as he was more likely to not be severely injured.

Astrid was staring at them both from the side of the fire. Her blond hair was cast in a red, sickly light, and her eyes betrayed her madness. Toothless couldn't smell her, as they were standing right next to a fire and there was no strong wind, but he knew he'd smell insanity on her scent if he could smell her at all.

Then she caught him watching her through the flames. Those hateful blue eyes narrowed, and she strode out into the open, abandoning her slow, subtle skulking for a more direct approach.

Toothless took a quick look around. Everyone else on the hill was absorbed in their own dealings. Unless they made a commotion, nobody would think anything of what was occurring.

"Close enough, Astrid," Maour warned. He had shifted away from Toothless's back while Toothless was occupied in watching her, and was now by his side, annoyingly enough. Toothless held back the urge to try and usher his brother behind him; that would just make Maour think he didn't trust him to be safe, which he did. He would just have to jump in front of any sudden strikes, something totally doable for a Night Fury.

There they stood, motionless, a dark and fire-lit little tableau, a crazed dragon-killer with an ax facing a dragon and a man in dragon-scale armor. Anywhere else, the scene would have inevitably descended into violence, and even here, everyone involved was ready if that did happen, despite the consequences.

"Close enough?" Astrid sneered, gesturing to the five paces of grass between herself and them. "Coward."

"Sure," Maour agreed sarcastically. "Because for Vikings, being a coward can also mean being sensible. I don't trust you further than I could throw you."

Toothless liked that expression. It was a good one, especially for Maour, who wouldn't be able to throw anyone all that far. He was strong enough for something with his build, but nowhere near the bulk of the average Viking, like Fishlegs.

"Coward. You run and hide behind anyone who will let you," Astrid sneered, tossing her braid restlessly with her head as she replied. "Stoick. Dragons. The Order-keeper, now. You're going to run out of hiding places."

"Maybe," Maour agreed, totally ignoring the attempted barb. He was good at that, something Toothless knew came from years of practice and now no need to conform to the standard Astrid was trying to accuse him of failing. "But if that's all you've come to say, you can go now."

"I'm going to kill you, it," and here Astrid pointed her ax at Toothless, making him flinch for a moment, "all the other Night Furies you've found, and then all that exist."

"Empty threats." Maour wasn't happy about that, and neither was Toothless. That hit close to home because they knew she meant to _try_.

"I've destroyed nests," Astrid boasted, her voice dark and laden with malice. She was holding it together for the moment, but the wind had picked up, and Toothless was inhaling the scent of madness and old blood with every breath. "I've killed dragons, scores of them. Big ones, small ones, old ones, young ones."

Toothless felt a distinct urge to fire and be done with this. She was an enemy, and peace or not, she needed to go. Her boasting made him want to end it now. But that was a stupid, rash urge, and he easily stamped down on it. Her words could hurt if she used the right ones, but they could not injure or kill. This was not-

'She is trying to provoke us,' Toothless realized aloud, growing softly at Astrid just to make his displeasure clear. 'To make me or you strike at her. To get us killed.'

Maour did not physically respond, but he did briefly access Toothless's sight, just long enough that Toothless noticed. The message there was clear if only implied. Maour saw the same thing Toothless did, metaphorically speaking.

Meanwhile, in the realm of communication and action Astrid was privy to, Maour shrugged his shoulders. "Many Vikings have done as much." He wasn't happy about it, but it wasn't going to provoke either of them.

"I've raided nests," Astrid continued happily, fingering the handle of her ax. Her eyes never left Toothless, and her hands sometimes twitched in his direction, as if longing to do some sort of harm. "Crushed eggs under my feet. Thrown them off of cliffs, into the ocean. Gronckles and Nadders, mostly, but I'm looking forward to doing the same with any I find on your island."

How did she know there were eggs there? Toothless found himself snarling and physically struggling to hold himself back. Instinct was kicking in, an urge to kill any who offered threat to the eggs his family held. He could feel the muscles in his legs tensing, preparing for a leap and a quick kill. It would be easy, and he needed to protect.

Then reason kicked in as well. She didn't know for sure that there were any eggs to destroy. She was just striking blindly with her threats and hoping to hit a nerve, which she definitely had. Stamping down the desire to strike and protect was much harder now, and Toothless found himself burying his claws in the ground, clutching the dirt and weak grass roots as if that would help, were his self-control to falter. She was not going to win this, even if winning did mean he got to kill her. His advice to Heather held him just as thoroughly here.

Maour, lacking the instincts that were enraging Toothless so thoroughly, was able to respond without missing a beat. "Go ahead and search. You can't find what doesn't exist."

"Isle of Night," Astrid gritted.

"Names do not have to be literal," Maour replied smugly. He was putting every shred of deceptive acting he was capable of into this and doing quite well. If Toothless didn't know better, he would think Maour was gloating about some clever trick that meant there was no island of Night Furies anywhere. "Narrow-minded thinking means you're going to miss a lot."

Astrid visibly relaxed, the anger in her scent evaporating far faster than should have been possible. Toothless didn't like that at all; smelling the insane was unsettling. Useful, and he was glad the wind was just right at the moment, but unsettling all the same.

"My ax will find your throat eventually," Astrid replied calmly. "Sooner or later, all Night Furies and all the traitors that associate with them will die. I'll kill you, and you'll go to wherever the animals go when they die. Helheim is too good for traitors like you, let alone Valhalla or anywhere else."

Maour smiled right back at her, seemingly amused and not at all bothered. "Perfect. I don't think they let dragons into those places anyway."

"You're a weakling who hides behind dragons," Astrid snarled, once again enraged. Her moods flipped back and forth like a fish stranded on dry land. "Not a dragon."

"No," Maour said happily, "but we both agree I deserve to end up wherever my family does."

"Not what I meant, and you know it." Astrid had her ax out now and was pointing it at Maour in a way that sorely tempted Toothless. He could just take it from her and flame it to molten metal, and nobody could call that an attack on _her_... but even that was too risky. Any move would give her an excuse to call everyone else down on him.

"That's how I chose to take it." Maour crossed his arms and glared at her. "Neither of us is going to fight you here. But if you keep walking the path you're on, we'll meet again, and you'll get your fight."

Astrid smiled grimly. "You talk like you can stop me."

"I could stop you right now," Maour retorted. "All it would take would be a single request. It might minorly inconvenience her, but I don't think Einfari plans on coming back here in the future."

Toothless had to puzzle over that for a moment. What would Einfari have to do with-?

Then he got it, and the idea appealed to him. 'Can we just do that now?' he requested. Having someone else blast Astrid's threat to their kind right out of existence would fix this. Einfari wouldn't be able to come back, but that was the only downside. The same reasoning Heather used to explain how the Berserkers could circumvent the peace applied here. He and Maour wouldn't be punished for Einfari's actions, and nobody could punish her if she was out of their reach.

"Try it," Astrid offered with a sly smile, clearly not understanding what she was asking for. She must not know who Einfari was, or what Maour meant, other than his suggesting she could be killed here and now.

'It is not as if she is immune to fire,' Toothless reasoned. He didn't really think his brother would go for it, but it was a good idea nonetheless.

'I'm up for it if you are,' Einfari called down to Maour, apparently having overheard the proposal. 'But Heather says it's too risky; anyone could claim it came from Toothless and demand restitution.'

"But I don't kill in cold blood, or have others do so for me," Maour admitted, settling the question, much to Toothless's discontent. "Go away, Astrid. If you want to die trying to kill us, do the rest of your tribe a favor and leave them out of it. You're not getting us to attack you here."

"Berk will go down in history as having purged the world of our traitors and dragons," Astrid claimed, backing away without taking her eyes off of Maour. "I will be known as the one to destroy you."

"You will be known to try," Maour retorted coldly. "If anyone remembers you. People who tear things down don't leave much of a legacy."

"Like you have anything," she spat back. "Traitor."

"Family, friends, the knowledge that I helped end a war and stop a tyrant… I think I have more than you ever will." Maour, in a show of disdain for Astrid and trust for Toothless, turned his back on the retreating madwoman.

"You'll die slowly and painfully _after _I destroy everything you've ever done." Astrid was going down the hill now, looking to Toothless like she was slowly sinking into the ground. "I'll make you watch it all first."

"I don't mind that," Maour said quietly, intending his remark for Toothless alone. "One of the big flaws in all the heroic stories I've heard is that the villain leaves the hero alive. I'd be more worried if she promised to kill me on the spot upon capturing me. Where there's life, there's hope."

'Sure,' Toothless agreed absently, looking around. Their argument had not attracted as much attention as he would have expected, though Snotlout was watching. He favored that particular Viking with a toothy snarl. 'Can we get out of here _now_? Surely nobody could call you a coward for leaving after her.'

"Yes," Maour granted. "Let's go." He hopped onto Toothless's back in a single, seamless motion, accurately predicting how Toothless would move to make it easier for him to get on. They were up, safely into the air, in less than half a dozen heartbeats, which was an impressive feat given how fast Toothless's heart was beating right now.

'Do all lunatics have such self-destructive plans?' Einfari called out, falling in behind them as they flew directly away from the hilltop.

"That felt more like an opportunistic plan than a real one," Maour replied. "She wanted us dead and saw a chance to try for that without risking anything."

"Except death," Heather objected. After a moment, she seemed to realize what everyone else was probably thinking of, and wilted in the saddle, leaning forward so far her forehead almost touched the back of Einfari's neck. If she said anything else, Toothless didn't hear her.

That was good. Toothless liked any sign that Heather had entirely internalized how stupid sacrificing oneself for revenge was.

'Will she try again?' Nóttreiði asked, once again reminding Toothless that he was around. Ever since he had shown up with the other two at this island, he had been less obtrusive than ever before. It was an interesting change, one Toothless wanted to look into whenever a chance arose. He didn't stick his nose into other people's business all that often, but this concerned Maour's safety, as it was Nóttreiði who was acting differently.

"If she has any actual plans, yes," Maour replied. "And Dagur, too. We only _need _to be there until the end of tomorrow night. They will pull out any tricks they've been preparing."

Toothless glanced over at the dark ocean to his right, where the small group of Berserker ships floated, away from the island. There were guards and plenty of lights on their decks, which ironically would make them more vulnerable if he or one of the other Night Furies present decided to attack, as they would have no night vision.

'Tomorrow, we do not let each other be alone on that island for any reason,' Einfari declared. 'Any at all.'

"But we don't let fear rule us, either," Heather countered softly.

'Right.' Einfari inclined her head briefly. 'But being ambushed is a distinct possibility. We do not want to become careless with the knowledge that we are almost done here.'

That was a sentiment Toothless entirely agreed with. They weren't going to let their guards down in the slightest.

* * *

Heather yawned tiredly. They had gotten up at dawn, as usual, but she had not gotten much sleep the night before. Being tired and nervous at the same time was a heady combination, but neither was avoidable. Where she was now had made sure of that.

'I question the intelligence of any gathering that forces all to be present all day, every day,' Einfari grumbled. The danger of being on this supposedly peaceful island made her disagreeable, but only in a petty way not directed at anything other than the situation itself. Nóttreiði was as alert as ever, watching their backs.

"It wouldn't be so bad if Maour was with us," Heather agreed. Having everyone together would at least make the entire situation feel a little less risky. Toothless was up on the hilltop with them, but Maour was down on the beach. The separation was strange, from Heather's point of view, but understandable. The hilltop was a defensible position, and Bertha's camp was not. Having all of the dragons watching the whole island from above was the smarter choice, strategically speaking.

Even if it did leave Toothless watching from afar instead of standing right by Maour. Heather, tired and focused on watching her surroundings, had missed most of the discussion leading up to Maour departing to talk to Bertha without his dragon brother.

'I agree,' Toothless growled. 'But I can protect him better from up here. We can. And it is only a five-second glide down to him. He is not so far away.'

"I meant for the conversation," Heather clarified.

'Right.' Toothless shook himself and looked over at Nóttreiði, who was slowly prowling around the edge of the hilltop, looking down at all sides of the small island. 'But we are positioned as defensively as possible.'

'In the event of them attacking us, we send you down to Maour, and then get out,' Einfari repeated soothingly. 'In the event of them attacking him, we send you down to Maour while the rest of us cover you with our fire, and then we all get out.'

'And I am not down there with him because the tents block my line of sight and would hinder me in doing or seeing anything,' Toothless recapped unhappily. 'He can hear me from anywhere, and I can still fire on that area, so I am only absent in body. It still feels wrong.'

"You two do everything together, huh?" Heather asked sympathetically.

'Not even close to _everything_,' Toothless replied, surprising her. He shrugged his wings. 'That would be difficult and strange. But we do not often let each other go into dangerous situations alone.'

'This is the smart move no matter how one looks at it,' Nóttreiði growled irritably. 'If the enemy is stupid, they attack him and we annihilate them. If they are slightly less stupid, they attack us and we flee or annihilate them. If they are cunning, they do nothing. So stop whining over not being right next to him.'

'You should consider not criticizing someone for wanting to protect a sibling,' Einfari suggested slyly. That shut Nóttreiði up quite effectively.

"What are they talking about down there?" Heather asked, both as a way of breaking the silence and as a way of satisfying her own curiosity. "What is there to talk about at all?"

'Many boring little things,' Toothless replied dismissively. 'Right now, Bertha is describing her home island in a fairly obvious attempt to get Maour to open up about our home, which he won't do.'

'And you call these humans allies?' Nóttreiði asked rudely.

'Allies who have their own best interests to consider, yes,' Toothless replied calmly. 'It is in their best interest to know where support will be coming from, and what form, exactly, it will take. Maour is saying nothing that should be secret, but he is also trying to make her feel she has made the right choice in allying with him.'

'You hear a lot,' Einfari said, purring lightly.

'I know Maour well, and Bertha is not subtle,' Toothless rumbled back. 'She makes no secret of what she wants beyond what is necessary to not force an answer, and Maour makes sure she thinks he cannot give an answer, but would like to if he was allowed, whether or not that is the case. It is a process that takes a lot of time without actually getting anywhere, but it apparently would be rude to skip.'

Heather nodded in understanding. It _would _be rude to refuse to talk to an allied chief, and Bertha would, of course, play to her own benefit with that. After spending months mostly away from the restrictions of Viking society, Heather found herself surprisingly annoyed by what she would have taken as obvious and simple before. It was all worthless, in the end. A way to burn time and make people feel better about their choices without actually gaining them anything.

'And the other Chieftains are not down there doing the same because..?' Einfari asked promptingly.

"They do not like thinking about what they have tied themselves to," Heather answered, knowing the reason instinctively. "Bertha allied with Maour alone, and then them. The rest of them followed her lead, so if it all goes wrong, they soothe their egos by blaming her, and they assume she will pass on anything she learns, as Maour is the odd one out." All obvious, and not malicious in nature. Dangerous, if those other leaders made bad decisions based on incomplete knowledge, but not intentionally backstabbing or treacherous.

'So it is all worthless,' Nóttreiði said.

"Yes," Heather replied, "it is for them. For us, Maour talking to her costs nothing and could reassure an ally, and prevent future betrayal. A tiny risk for a small possible reward."

'It costs my nerves,' Toothless muttered inching forward on the edge of the hill. He was watching Maour, Einfari and Heather were watching the area around Maour and the Bog Burglar tents, and Nóttreiði was watching the rest of the island, looking out for any dangerous individuals or groups approaching either the hilltop or the Bog Burglar tents.

Heather had a thought, looking down at the sandy shoreline. "Hey, Nóttreiði, can you see the Order-keeper anywhere?" she asked without thinking about it. Einfari translated for her without hesitation.

Nóttreiði huffed and continued his circle of the hilltop. Just as Heather had decided he wasn't going to reply, he spoke. 'The Order-keeper, the one in the reflective false scales, is speaking with two very large and very upset…'

'What is it?' Toothless asked, walking over to look at whatever Nóttreiði was seeing. Heather, who had turned to watch him, could not see the other side of the island, but she had a great view of how Toothless tensed.

'Brother?' Einfari asked worriedly.

'I believe we have just seen the first breach of this so-called peace,' Nóttreiði eventually replied. 'Blood stains the sand.'

'Two men got into a fight, I think,' Toothless reported more helpfully, 'and the Order-keeper just disciplined the one who started it. Fatally.'

"That's the only kind of discipline around here," Heather murmured. One of the many parts of this that surprised her was that the Vikings all consented to letting the Order-keeper kill for any violent infraction. "How did he do it?"

'I did not see; he had his men surround the two combatants,' Toothless replied. 'Probably with that little knife we had to cut ourselves on. There might be some symbolism involved there.'

'They got what they deserved for being stupid enough to fight here,' Einfari said dismissively. 'The same thing Astrid would have gotten.'

Or Heather, if she had been stupid enough to go after Dagur in some self-destructive revenge attempt. Heather shivered, and moved away from Einfari, making a pretense of looking down at another group of tents to the right of the one Maour was standing within.

She didn't like to think about her revenge now. Toothless had made his point, and she knew it was stupid to go after Dagur here. That wasn't it, though. If it was just a past stupidity now corrected, before it could do any harm, she would be fine with it.

No, the real worry was that she didn't like that her past self had been willing to die for revenge. Was she wrong to not feel willing now, or had she been wrong before? She felt like she was being pulled in two different directions.

On one side, she had her past. Her mother, her father, and her whole island. Revenge, at any cost. And on the other…

On the other side of things, she had all of this. Einfari, Skarpur, Joy, a new island and tribe of sorts. Sure, there were some irritants, Nóttreiði and his father among them, but those were things she could live with. Toothless had told her that sacrificing herself hurt Einfari and the other people who cared about her, too.

Heather didn't know if she could have both. She didn't even know, exactly, what the latter group actually was to her. What Toothless had implied seemed wrong, but right at the same time.

None of it was good to think about. Not here, where half of her mind had to be on safety at all times. Later, on their weeks-long ride back, she could puzzle over all of that. Travelling as a passenger on a Night Fury gave ample time for thought.

'We have more trouble,' Einfari abruptly barked, drawing Heather's attention entirely to the present. Heather immediately remembered to use her friend's sight instead of wasting time accessing, and performed the little mental trick required to do so with only a little effort. She was getting better at that.

What she saw made her stomach turn. Dagur, alone and apparently unarmed, was walking up the hill, right toward them. He was moving slowly, but the sly grin on his face made her want to run, not confront him. One did not engage a maniac when he was both at a self-imposed disadvantage, and happy about it. Even for a lunatic, that didn't add up.

'I feel like we are under assault by half-formed plans and madness,' Toothless muttered. 'But it is a good plan. If we fire on him, we will be the aggressors.'

'In a situation where we can just flee and leave unpunished,' Einfari argued quickly. 'There is more to this.'

Heather tried to puzzle through their enemy's intentions. Sure, he was insane, and dying to a Night Fury _might _get him into Valhalla, but not even carrying a weapon implied he wasn't going to go for a warrior's death. He also, by that same measure, wasn't going for a warrior's victory.

"Where are his other men?" Heather asked aloud. They had at most two minutes before Dagur got too close for comfort, with how slow he was walking.

'I don't… there!' Toothless barked rushing over to the back of the hillside. Nóttreiði was immediately beside him, glaring down at whatever was below. 'They are watching from the shore, and from their ship that is docked. There is something on the deck that was not there before.'

A weapon. Possibly a net launcher. But there was no ship-bound weapon capable of doing anything from this distance. Heather knew the look of a ballista, and that definitely wasn't one. She would bet on it being a net launcher. Defensive, not offensive. Not from this angle.

"So he's not planning to distract us," Einfari snarled. 'We are not stupid. What is this?'

"We are not stupid, but he just might be," Heather reasoned, not sure where she was going with this. "There is no rational plan. Now let's consider the irrational."

'A good point.' Einfari nodded frantically. 'Irrationally, he might believe he can take you hostage if he approaches under the guise of no threat. He is bigger than you, and could do you harm if he got too close.'

Heather had a vivid mental image of Dagur snapping her neck from behind. He was strong enough to do it if she let him get into a position to try. "Definitely possible." But he might not want her dead. "It's also possible he wants to try and convince me to join him."

'As if that would work,' Einfari scoffed. Dagur was getting close now, almost within shouting distance. 'We should just flee now.'

'It is that stupid reputation again,' Toothless said unhappily, lashing his tail at the ground, though he was careful to not actually hit at all hard. 'If we flee, he will boast of the Night Furies fearing him. I am told we cannot be seen to be weak or scared.'

Heather nodded reluctantly. "True." She could totally see Dagur using any purported weakness on their side to coerce weaker tribes into joining him in attacking them later. Dagur already had enough of a numerical advantage without that, and there was the reputation of Night Furies as a species to protect as well, a reputation she now cared about.

Heather realized with a start that she had begun to include herself under that label. Night Fury. Fast, deadly, unseen, mysterious and dangerous. That was ridiculous, but it felt right, just like calling herself a Nótt did.

Had she ever thought of herself as a Nótt? Maybe? She couldn't remember. There was no time to search her memories. Right now, a decision needed to be made, and she was the one best equipped to make it.

"Dagur wants to be persuasive," Heather decided aloud, moving over to Einfari and getting into the saddle. "He might also want to distract all of us. We should split up. Einfari, Nóttreiði and I go and meet him halfway down, leaving Toothless to continue watching the island. We will not be taken off of our guard." She included Nóttreiði with her and Einfari simply because he would not-

'No, Nóttreiði needs to stay on top of the hill with Toothless; we do not leave anyone alone here,' Einfari immediately replied. 'And brother, before you argue, know that Heather needs a dragon to sit on in order to be out of reach, and neither you nor Toothless can provide both understanding of the conversation _and _flight if it is needed.' She spoke in a clipped, no-nonsense voice. 'This is the smartest response to the situation.'

'I watch you, Toothless watches Maour and the island,' Nóttreiði replied in a frustrated, worried voice. He stared at Einfari imploringly. 'Take no risks; do not let it get near.'

'Go now,' Toothless agreed, beginning to circle the hilltop. 'Before he gets too close.'

Einfari nodded and began to walk down the hill, directly toward Dagur, who stopped and waited the moment he saw her coming, his arms spread wide as if to reassure Heather.

Heather felt anything but reassured. The many things she had just decided to not think about until later were all coming up again, unresolved and plaguing her with doubts and questions. What was she doing? Was it better to avenge the old, or keep the new safe? This was not necessarily a suicide strike; Einfari could blow Dagur to pieces and be out of danger before anyone else so much as blinked. But it would not be totally safe.

And what was she going to say to him if she didn't have Einfari kill him on the spot? What was there to say for either of them? She was only coming down here because Dagur was forcing it through custom. If she had her way she would either be far away, putting an ax blade between his eyes or shooting him with the bow on her back, though she didn't really know how to use that last option.

"I'd rather have it as a hat," Dagur remarked, pointing at Einfari, "but your way works too."

Heather crossed her arms and glared at Dagur. She was glad she could physically look down on him from Einfari's back. That helped her keep all of this in perspective. He was dangerous and needed to die, but not right now, and not right here. Here, he was a vocal but unarmed annoyance, just like Astrid. More so, as even if he snapped right now he'd be physically incapable of besting Einfari, lacking any kind of weapon to do so with.

"What?" Dagur asked casually, seeing her glare. "Just saying."

"You're mighty bold," Heather replied angrily, "for someone with no weapon facing a Night Fury."

"Family doesn't kill family," Dagur retorted.

"How does that square with you killing your own father?" Heather didn't really want to know, but she _did _want to remove whatever delusion his crazed mind held about her. If she was going to be forced by circumstance to face him, she would try for something useful.

"I had someone else actually kill him."

"I have someone else totally willing to kill you now," Heather retorted, patting Einfari's head to draw Dagur's attention to the lethal dragon under her and growling at him. "But even if family didn't kill family indirectly either, it wouldn't matter, because there is _nothing _between us."

"You can't deny blood," Dagur asserted cheerily. He was at least holding to the same implacable, smug attitude. Heather planned on wiping all of that smugness right off of his face if possible, and it would be all the more satisfying since he wasn't shifting between moods as he usually did.

"I can and do." Heather hoped Einfari was watching their surroundings. There was no way this wasn't a distraction of some sort.

"You should at least hear me out," Dagur proposed, still unnaturally calm. There was an odd look on his face, something sinister but undefined. "Come over to my ship, let me show you what Berserker hospitality looks like, tell you about how it's your duty to help your tribe, all of that. It'll be fun."

'Toothless, Nóttreiði, tell me there is some sort of ambush coming,' Einfari loudly requested, calling back at the top of the hill. 'I did not take this madman for an imbecile.'

'His other ships are moving,' Toothless replied tensely. 'It will take a few minutes for them to get around to that side of the island, but they _are _moving.'

So it _was _a trap, and Dagur was using himself as a distraction. That was actually a relief; at least now Heather knew what was going on. Heather laughed scornfully. "You're not dealing with just me, Dagur. I know your ships are circling around the island. This is all a ploy."

"I want my sister working toward the same goal I do." Dagur narrowed his eyes and stared at her in a way she might have found menacing were they on equal footing. "Sometimes people need a push. Toward greatness or over a cliff. Your choice."

"Over the cliff," Heather replied without hesitation. "Because someone I trust would catch me before I hit the ground."

'Me, or any Night Fury that knows you, except maybe my brother,' Einfari hummed in agreement. 'And he is working on that.'

"Come on," Dagur pleaded, sounding like he would be resorting to force if there was any way to physically reach her, "think about it. You want me to punish the men that killed your family? Done. I'll have fun with that. Want power? I want you by my side, like Savage. You can even get rid of him if you feel like it. But you're a Berserker, through and through, and you need to accept that."

Heather wasn't tempted for a moment. "The word of a sadistic madman is worth nothing to me."

"You _will _be a Berserker," Dagur threatened. One of the Berserker ships was slowly sailing into sight beyond his right shoulder, too far out from the island to possibly interfere at the moment. "Dead or alive. You are one already."

"I'm anything but that," Heather gritted.

"You are part of no tribe-"

"The Isle of Night," Heather interjected confidently, seeing a way to entirely contradict him. She still wanted to try and dissuade him from pursuing her, and this felt like it might be the answer. "The same tribe Maour speaks for. I am one of them and have been for a while. The Berserkers have no claim to me. And _you _certainly do not either."

"Blood-"

"Will be spilled, between you and me," Heather threatened. "Not today, not here, but someday, somewhere. That's the only blood between us. Me spilling yours."

"Really…" Dagur took a step back for no obvious reason, and then one to the side. "Fine, we'll do it the hard way." He raised his right hand.

'This is obviously a signal, but there is nothing that can be done on it?' Einfari sidled over to the right, mirroring Dagur. 'He is moving out of the way of something.'

Heather saw that already. Dagur only made it more obvious by moving back to where he had stood before, once again maneuvering to not be directly between them and his ship, which was still too far away for anything-

Too far away for anything Heather knew about. She shouldn't assume anything, not when Dagur was this confident. "Anything happens to us, and you die."

"Why would anything happen?" Dagur sounded like he knew she had caught on, but didn't care all that much. "Come with me quietly. My ship has a nice spare cabin and a nice cell. You get to choose which one you want. Bring the dragon if you want." Here his smile grew truly sinister. "I have several open cells."

'Einfari, get away from there,' Nóttreiði called out. 'Now!'

Heather lurched back as Einfari sprung to the side and then took off, barely holding on to the saddle with her legs. There was a muted impact off to her right, and an annoyed yell from Dagur.

By the time Heather regained her position on Einfari well enough to comprehend what was going on around her, everyone was in the air. Toothless and Maour were rising up from the shore, and Nóttreiði was behind Einfari, flying down below her just enough that any attack at her from the shore would hit him first.

Attacks from the shore weren't what they needed to worry about. "What was that, and is it still a threat?" Heather asked quickly.

'A thick net, propelled by something strong, all the way from the ship,' Toothless snarled, pulling up to fly beside them. They were making good time and were now definitely out of range of the island.

"I guess somebody figured out how to make better net launchers," Maour yelled across. "It hit the hill from where the ship is now?"

Heather looked down and back at the island and the Berserker ship. It hadn't moved. "It did."

"Increased range and accuracy, to hit like that," Maour replied. "We need to be very careful."

'Surely this counts as an attack on us?' Nóttreiði snarled angrily. 'Let us get whatever justification is needed to kill them.'

'I am fine,' Einfari growled. 'And I think nothing was ever said about ships attacking people on the island. Besides, it did not actually hit.'

"We could still argue it," Heather said. "I'm with Nóttreiði on this." They shot at her and Einfari, and they deserved to pay for that.

'At best, will they not just let you kill whichever Berserker actually pulled the trigger, though?' Toothless asked skeptically, shooting the idea down without even trying.

Heather deflated a bit at that, as her anger was directed at Dagur, not his pawns. "Yes, that's how these stupid rules work." She just wanted to get out of this place. The rules only really made anything better if everyone chose to play by them in good faith. There were holes big enough to shoot a net through, it seemed.

'On the bright side,' Einfari purred, trying to lighten the sudden dark mood that had fallen over them all, 'now I entirely understand why Maour wants Dagur alive. That was _a _plan, but it was not a good one, and not even close to the best someone like you or me could have come up with.'

"Definitely not a good plan." Not when she had dragons watching out for her and keeping their eyes on absolutely everything. Without Einfari and the others, that would have gone far differently.

Without Einfari and the others, she would be Dagur's prisoner and would have been for months, having never been freed in the first place.

And that could still be her fate. She wasn't totally safe until Dagur was gone. "I still want him dead. We can deal with him and his armada at the same time. It doesn't matter who succeeds him if they lead a ruin of a tribe." To do that, they needed to fight, and to do that, they needed to leave.

Heather was done here. She wanted to get to whatever was next, and this entire gathering was a place of talking and danger with no further reward. Hopefully, they could leave soon.

* * *

'Midnight,' Nóttreiði bargained. 'Not a moment longer.'

'We will stay until Maour and Toothless know what is happening next; that might be another day,' Einfari countered blithely. 'We're not leaving before them. There's no point.'

No point? 'The point is to get away from danger before it hurts us.' He had grown complacent earlier, to let her get anywhere near a human, unarmed or not. He had _failed. _If she had not been agile and alert, she could have gotten hurt or killed. It was unlikely the net itself could have injured Einfari, but there was a madman with some sort of plan right there, waiting. And Nóttreiði had not been there.

'You were just fired on,' he continued, seeing that she didn't care about his previous reason. That should be all he needed to say! Toothless could risk his life by going back, but Einfari was not going to do the same. She didn't even _need _to be there!

'I avoided it.' Einfari paced along the edge of the small sea stack they had claimed for their discussion. Heather was off with Toothless and Maour, scouting out the human ships now spaced around the island, so it was just the two of them for the moment.

Nóttreiði did not think that was a coincidence. He knew his sister had arranged for this to be a private argument. She knew what he was going to say, but he said it anyway, because it was common sense.

'Why?' He was out of options. She was going to go back, and he didn't have a leg to stand on in arguing against it if simple, common sense did nothing. Getting mad wouldn't help, not when he still worried, deep in the back of his mind, that she feared him.

'Heather will be there, and I am her way off the island. I will not abandon her there, not even if she could ride Toothless out if things get ugly.'

'That is all?' Nóttreiði knew what she thought he meant, so he didn't wait for her response to her misconception of what he was thinking. 'Because she does not need to be there either, right? Both of you stay away.'

'She will want to be there,' Einfari hummed thoughtfully. 'But I do not want her in danger any more than you want me in danger, and you are right, she does not _need _to be present. And it is good you are looking out for her.'

Nóttreiði bit down on his first response, which was to deny caring in any way. He was a Nótt, and that meant he would use his sister's desire to see him bury his hate, not openly deny it and reveal his feelings on the subject, not after hiding them for weeks.

Besides, he wasn't sure what they were any longer. He hated humans, and Heather was a part of that group, but he just wasn't sure any longer, and that child from the day before had only muddied the waters further.

Ideally, in a perfect world, he would want to talk to his father about this. But it was entirely possible his father would tell him exactly what he didn't want to hear, assuming he asked straight out.

Nothing said he _had _to ask straight out, though. That was something to think about.

In any case, Nóttreiði could not wait to turn his tail on this place and go home. Things were hard enough with just his own internal problems, or external threats. Both at the same time threatened to make him fail at everything. Protecting his sister, dealing with the humans, and anything else.

* * *

"That was stupid." Astrid made no pretense to neutrality; they were alone in Dagur's tent, and she had her ax. She'd slit his throat if he attacked. "You gave away knowledge of a hunting tool. They will be wary."

Dagur laughed angrily, obviously holding himself back. He was sitting cross-legged in the center of his tent, his eyes closed, and had been since she arrived, shoving her way right past Savage. "I don't see you doing any better. Since when does little Hiccup get mad and _attack?_" he asked scathingly. "Come on, he would just run! I know that; he ran from me all the time."

Astrid threw her ax down, burying the blade in the sand. She knew better than to trust her own shaky self-control right now. "It was a chance. Anyone would try to shut me up." The plan had been simple; say the most enraging, insulting, hurtful things she could, and dodge whatever attack came. Then she could claim he or the dragon had struck, and get to watch them die.

"Don't you want to torture him first?" Dagur asked. "I do. They wouldn't let you do that here; you wouldn't even get to kill him yourself!"

"I do want to torture him first," Astrid gritted. She had not even considered that. "I saw a chance and took it."

"You've got to stop doing that," Dagur replied condescendingly. "Someone needs to check your thinking for you since you can't do it yourself. I have Savage for that. And you..?"

She knew what he was asking. Snotlout had blabbered everything about his deal with Dagur once she questioned him about it. "Gobber is coming with me." He was faithful, her Savage, her backup mind. She did need someone like that, and he was a skilled dragon killer, the perfect kind of aide with what she was going to be doing.

"Great. I don't have to kidnap him." Dagur grinned wryly, his eyes still closed. He had not so much as looked up since she entered the tent. "I have bad luck with kidnapping right now."

"Look at me," Astrid demanded. "What are you even doing?"

"Something you will learn. When I start failing at everything, it means I am getting too wound up," Dagur gritted. His teeth were literally locked, and his entire face betrayed some sort of foreign strain. "Too crazy, too excited. Tonight is too important for me to be ineffective, so I am unwinding. Calming myself."

Tonight was important, at that. Very important. "My things are on your ship. And the rest?"

"Berk?"

"Snotlout isn't committing," Astrid admitted. "And he's staying in public at all times." She'd have to rely on the momentum of the situation to get him moving; he knew she wasn't going to be around to control him after tonight. That made him frustratingly noncompliant.

"We'll get their support or we'll wipe them out in turn," Dagur asserted.

"Of course." She felt no loyalty to Berk. Her only loyalty was to her hunt, and Berk was through being useful. A puppet was good, but an equally crazed ally with a much larger force was better.

"Good. We do need his support for the first part."

"He'll do that for sure." He wanted to be rid of her, and not making the betrothal official would hinder that.

"This is going to be a fun night," Dagur asserted calmly. Everything about him spoke of calm. She didn't like it. Since when did he get to be calm when she was subject to every sharp turn her own unhinged emotions took?

"Teach me that." If it helped her focus, it would help her hunt, and she needed to be effective to hunt. Especially tonight.

"Later."

"Now."

"Later."

"I'll cut you in half." She put her hand down near the handle of her ax, crouching to do so without taking her eyes off of him.

"I'll kill you if you try."

"You have no weapon."

"I'm paranoid, not suicidal," he said wryly. "My ax is in the sand right next to my hand."

"You're bluffing."

"You're threatening your future husband."

"Future."

"We both know neither of us wants the other dead."

"But we also both know I would win if we fought now." She knew very well that they were both willing to kill the other if necessary, but it wasn't necessary, and wouldn't be so long as their goals were aligned. He supported her hunt, so they were good.

But thinking of aligning goals and fitness for the hunt... "You're not laying a finger on me until the hunt for the Night Furies and the traitor is over."

"I'm a Chief," he replied wryly, entirely following the rapid shift in topic. "There will be witnesses who need to see otherwise."

"We don't need to be married to hunt."

"We need to be married for you to have any actual power. I'm not giving any non-Berserker control over anything." His voice grew hard. "Not even you. So that has to happen first."

"What is your plan for Heather, then?" Astrid asked skeptically. She had heard the summarized version of the argument from Gobber, who had heard it from Savage, who had heard it from Dagur. All in less than an hour. Word traveled fast when everyone involved knew who wanted to hear it and wanted to talk. Heather was not a Berserker in mind.

"She's a Berserker. It'll just take some… persuasion." Dagur shrugged. "Maybe I'll marry her off to Savage. She'll kill him within a month, but anything that ties her to her rightful people helps, and once she's trustworthy she can take the place he held."

"She's a dragon rider. A traitor." Astrid knew she was stepping on thin ice but didn't care. She didn't believe Dagur really had an ax in the sand under his hand.

"Madness must run in the family. If we take the dragon alive, I'll break it, use it as a mount, and then kill it once it's not fun anymore. Or have her kill it." He giggled maniacally. "Come on, it would be so funny to see little Hiccup's face as I have my own slave Night Fury kill his and bring him to me."

"To us. I have plans for him." He was her biggest mistake, and she was going to savor fixing that mistake. He was going to die, but only after he had suffered as much as possible, and watched everything he loved crumble to ash in front of him.

"To us," Dagur agreed. "But there's going to be a public consummation before any of that." He pulled his ax out of the sand, proving he had it, and waved it at her tauntingly. "So get used to the idea."

All for the hunt. It was a good thing she planned to have Hiccup and the Night Furies here chained or dead at her feet before the end of tonight because there was a chance she wouldn't be physically fit to hunt for a few months in the near future. A necessary sacrifice to be able to use the Berserker armada at all if Dagur was going to be stubborn.

"Tomorrow night. We get married tomorrow." Not tonight. They had other things going on tonight, far more interesting things.

"Tomorrow," Dagur agreed with a predatory grin. He finally opened his eyes, which were just as pale and fey as always. He clearly thought he had won, which he had. But since him winning benefitted her hunt, she wanted him to win.

It was all coming to a point, here and now. A sharp, deadly point, one their abortive, half-planned forays had failed to reach. Those were all opening jabs. Tonight was the first real strike.

_**Author's Note: **_**I didn't really want to leave the last chapter on a cliffhanger because, as you now see, it was a false one, mostly. This chapter has the real one. Sorry about that, but I **_**totally **_**wanted to leave this one where I did. Next chapter is at least not going to be as long in coming, thanks to this being late.**

**Once again, on a more positive note, writing that last scene was a lot of fun. Dagur's crazy, but he's used to that, and it stands to reason he'll have figured out how to calm down enough to use it instead of being used by it. He's aware of the madness and recognizes it as not being all good on its own, which is an approach I've only seen in one other story, one that had a lot of weird stuff going on. I won't recommend it, as it's not super high quality (definitely not high enough to make my favorites), and forever incomplete. (Also, I don't remember the name, so it would be kind of hard to find again to recommend if I wanted to).**


	26. Chapter 26

_**Author's Note: **_**What can I say? This chapter is eight days late. But the part that's probably confusing most of you is that it went up on time for a few hours last week before being taken down again. The reason for that is complicated, but in essence I wrote the latter half of this chapter, posted, and then had second thoughts that the first few reviews reinforced. So, I took it down and rewrote it again. Quality is more important than being on time, though my entire method for writing is _supposed _to ensure both.**

**The _real _chapter 26 is here now, though. The original version will go up in deleted scenes for those who didn't get to see it.**

** Also, a bit of good news. The beta for this story has returned!**

** Now, on to what everyone actually cares about. For those who've read this chapter once already... I'd suggest reading it again. Things go very differently this time around.**

Time was running short. Maour had a feeling that there must be some small thing he and Toothless could be doing to tip the scales a little bit more in their favor, but he didn't know what that could be. What they were doing now, sitting on a sea stack and staring out into the distance, certainly wasn't it.

Not to say they were not doing something useful. Einfari, Nóttreiði, and Heather were all out fishing in the distance. Maour and Toothless were watching them and the Berserker ships still slowly circling the meeting island. It was important that nobody be caught off-guard.

'How long will we have been gone?' Toothless suddenly asked.

"You mean since we left on this trip?" Maour was pretty sure that was what his brother meant, so he wasn't surprised when Toothless nodded in confirmation. "Well," he began, thinking aloud, "two weeks to get to Berserker island, a day to set up and meet with Dagur, another day after that, then three days to Berk, another day there, four days to get here, then a week until the meeting started. Three days here so far, and tonight is the last important event. So another two weeks home. Altogether, about seven weeks, give or take a day. Almost two months."

Toothless whined softly. 'Eggs take anywhere from one to four months to hatch. We might have missed it. They'll need us when the eggs do hatch.'

Maour winced. "If we end up at war anyway, they might have to make do for a while. We can't skip out on that either." He hated the idea, but it was a possibility.

'I know. Besides, we need to protect them. I'll tear Astrid apart if she takes one step towards our family.' Toothless began kneading the rock with his claws, marring the smooth surface.

"Agreed." Maour was as serious as his brother was about that. If enemies set foot on the Isle, no mercy could be shown. If he had his way, Astrid would never even see his home or family. "But hopefully, we can warn her off. Well, warn Snotlout off anyway. I don't think Astrid will stop for anything, but Snotlout might not want to get into a war with all of us, and he can refuse to let her go. He knows what she's capable of, so he would have to imprison her, for his own safety." That was what Maour was betting on. Snotlout might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but that course of action was obvious, and taking it would mean they only had to face the Berserkers.

'Well, we'll know soon enough. All our moves have been made. Now we just have to wait and see.'

* * *

Heather didn't like the looks of the island. "There's no way this isn't a trap," she muttered. Einfari would know what she meant.

'They can fire on the island,' Einfari agreed. 'We know this. So ships circling mean that they intend to make use of that. We should not land there at all.'

"But we have to." They needed to be present for the last night of announcements and negotiation. Skipping out wasn't acceptable, however frustrating that was. "Maour and Toothless have to, anyway."

'Maybe not,' Einfari mused. 'It would be much smarter to drop Maour off and, if needed, fly down and pick him up. Toothless cannot do that, but nothing says Toothless has to be the one doing that.'

'We will be flying into danger if that is the plan,' Nóttreiði interrupted, reminding both of them that he was flying right behind them. 'The current plan keeps us safe while risking Maour and Toothless.'

'What would you suggest?' Einfari asked curiously. 'Do you think it is better to risk ourselves a little or to let our friends take a much bigger risk?'

Nóttreiði growled unhappily. 'It depends on who is being risked. Let Toothless take the risk; he is the one choosing to go down there with Maour. I would sacrifice him a thousand times over to protect you.'

Heather wasn't sure whether Nóttreiði meant he would sacrifice Maour or Toothless, but she thought he probably meant it either way.

'That is extremely selfish,' Einfari growled. 'Like saying you would rather Toothless lose a wing than I suffer a minor cut on my own wing.'

'I would,' Nóttreiði agreed solemnly.

'Fine then,' Einfari snorted. 'You may feel however you like. _I _am not willing to make those unbalanced trades. If I can get Maour and Toothless to agree to it, I will drop Maour off and be responsible for picking him up myself.'

"What will the rest of us be doing in this plan?" Heather asked, hoping to draw her friend away from what looked to be a growing argument.

'Nóttreiði will be with me because I cannot dissuade him from constantly shadowing me,' Einfari answered quickly. 'You and Toothless will wait on a distant sea stack, and Maour will have shown you enough of how the tail works to get the both of you home if something goes wrong.'

Heather didn't react immediately, holding her initial response back in favor of actually thinking it over. In the event of something going wrong, she and Toothless could go toward the fight and help just as easily as they could flee, even if that wasn't Einfari's intention.

"You really think Toothless and Maour will go for that?" she asked, deciding to entirely avoid giving her own opinion on the plan. She didn't like it, but it was a good idea for minimizing risk, and if things went bad, she could still join the fight.

'They will if they are smart,' Einfari asserted confidently.

* * *

'You want me to do _what?_' Toothless asked incredulously. He looked over at Maour. 'Tell me you are not considering this.'

"Without me, you're stuck on that island," Maour said slowly, tapping his foot against the stone of the sea stack. "It makes sense."

'If this goes badly, I am stuck watching!' Toothless exclaimed. 'It is smarter to have three Night Furies and two riders in the air, not two and one.'

'If we were fighting a battle, maybe,' Einfari agreed. 'But this will not be a battle, it will be an attack on us, one we can simply flee from. We only need as many people as maximizes our chances of escaping an attack. Sorry, but your tail means you are not as efficient as I would be.'

Toothless growled angrily, clearly denying that assessment, though Heather thought it fair enough. 'Maour and I can outfly you any day of the week, and you know it.'

'That means nothing here, when you cannot fly at all,' Einfari replied, her tail lashing aimlessly. You would also be stuck on the ground down there, a large, obvious target from afar.'

'It is a hilltop, they-'

'Can shoot that far, and _will _see any dragon walking around up there.' Einfari flicked her ears at the island. 'Those ships are circling. You would have to be covered by humans on all sides. No dragon can walk around up there tonight.'

'Up there, maybe. It will be dark; I can just wait somewhere on the hillside.' Toothless rumbled smugly. 'So there.'

'You _could_,' Einfari granted, 'but the fact remains that with you on the island, Maour has to get to you. With just him down there, I have to get to him from the air. One is easier, faster, and safer than the other.'

'So you would not be down there either, meaning Maour would be alone, with nobody to watch his back,' Toothless snarled. 'No. I would rather take the risk.'

Heather was struck by the parallel. Toothless and Nóttreiði might not have much in common, but they did both want to protect their siblings however possible.

'There is a simple solution,' Nóttreiði growled. 'Send down both humans. They can watch each other's backs and will provide no obvious target.'

To go down onto the island one more time? To maybe face Dagur again?

Heather didn't want to die fighting Dagur, but that wasn't likely, and if she didn't go down, Toothless might. A small risk to prevent someone else taking a larger risk. "I can do that."

'You can, but my brother is not thinking it through,' Einfari replied. 'Nóttreiði, tell me, how many dragons would we need to safely retrieve two humans?'

'One?' Nóttreiði guessed tentatively, seeming to understand that he was missing something. 'They are not heavy, or at least these two are not.'

'More than one; the idea is that I will swoop down and grab Maour by the shoulders, airlifting him in an instant without the delay associated with landing, letting him get on, and then taking off.'

"So you would need two dragons," Maour added, looking over at Nóttreiði.

'I had come to that conclusion on my own,' Nóttreiði snarled. 'No need to make sure I understand. I can be the second dragon.'

'I do not trust you to safely retrieve my brother,' Toothless growled, stalking over to face Nóttreiði. 'Or Heather.'

'I am _trying _to adjust my ways,' Nóttreiði replied. 'I can do this if it means my sister does not need to make two passes or land to let both on, which are the alternatives. Trust that I want my sister to be safe and that I want her to trust me.'  
He spoke with a vehement frustration that Heather reluctantly recognized. She knew that frustration; She felt it when considering Nóttreiði's own distrust of her. He was very, very good at pretending he was trying to change.

Or he wasn't pretending anymore. She couldn't let herself believe that, no matter how much she wanted to. But his reasoning was sound here, and she did know he wanted his sister's trust. It was another calculated risk. "He can pick me up." If he was faking to gain her trust in order to lower her guard, she could fake trusting him and lowering her guard in turn.

Did Nótts often plot against each other? Heather thought not, because while she was not a Nótt, this was already way too layered and complex. It would be easier for everyone if Nótts didn't work against each other… which, from what she had seen, was how things usually worked between them. It was only her presence that upset their allegiance to one another.

"If Heather thinks she can trust Nóttreiði to retrieve her, then I think we have a plan," Maour announced. "Brother?"

'She watches your back.' Toothless growled unhappily. 'She gets her ax back for this, just in case. And the _instant _things go bad, Einfari grabs you and gets out of there.'

"Definitely, but I'll call for her," Maour clarified. "Okay?"

'We both know I do not like it, and we both know I will agree to this because it is smart,' Toothless muttered. 'I cannot wait to leave here. This place is one of frustration and needlessly complicated plans.'

Maour leaned over and scratched his brother behind the ears. "Believe me, I agree. It's better than fighting every Viking in the archipelago, but sometimes I almost think that would be less frustrating. At least that's straightforward."

'I don't know what you're complaining about,' Einfari quipped lightly. 'This is a Nótt's optimal environment. Plenty to manipulate, and a constant stream of problems to work on.'

'If a wrong answer did not put you in danger, maybe, but this is not a paradise for me,' Nóttreiði said. 'I will be glad to go home.'

"Agreed," Heather said. It would be good to go… home? Was she thinking of the Isle of Night as home, now? She certainly wasn't thinking of the island she had grown up on; as far as she knew, that place was still a lifeless ruin, thanks to Dagur.

Maour was rummaging around in Toothless's saddlebags, looking for something. Heather remembered that Toothless had requested she be armed for this. Maour was probably looking for her ax.

"Get the old one," she requested. "Not the good one you made for me. I don't have time to get used to that." The same logic applied to why she wasn't telling him not to bother. She didn't have time to train with the bow, either. Besides, they would be far too close for a ranged weapon if fighting broke out.

All precautions. The flight plans, substituting Einfari for Toothless as transportation, planning to grab them in case of something going wrong, bringing weapons. They were planning for failure while hoping for success.

Heather took the plain ax Maour offered her and tossed it from hand to hand. She was okay with an ax, nothing more. Hopefully, it wouldn't be needed tonight.

* * *

Maour hated leaving Toothless behind for this last meeting, but he understood that bringing Toothless was just asking for things to go wrong. The danger of improved net-launchers striking even the top of the hill from Berserker ships made having his brother with him just too risky.

That didn't make it any easier. They didn't like leaving each other to face danger alone, and this was the second time in recent memory that Toothless was having to sit something out.

'Stay safe,' Toothless whined, nuzzling Maour's chest. The sun was sinking below the horizon as they spoke. The others were already up in the air. 'I can't come for you if you get into trouble.'

"Don't you dare try swimming to the island," Maour warned seriously. "I know it looks close enough from here, but the currents will drag you down, and you can't save anyone if you're dead." He worried Toothless would do something desperate if fighting broke out.

'If you are killed, I will prove myself a hypocrite to Heather,' Toothless rumbled unhappily. 'I told her not to get herself killed by seeking revenge.'

"So don't get killed," Maour replied. "Go home, get help, and make sure nobody else dies because of them." He didn't specify who; almost anyone on the island would probably try to kill him if they thought they could get away with it. Possibly even some of his allies.

'Don't get killed or captured in the first place,' Toothless replied. 'And Maour…'

"Yes?" He needed to go soon; Einfari was circling back around, and Heather looked distinctly uncomfortable dangling from Nóttreiði's front paws, though Maour and Einfari had made sure Nóttreiði was holding her in a safe and secure way.

'If it comes down to fighting, don't hold back,' Toothless said sternly. 'Kill. You don't kill in cold blood, but that won't be cold blood, and I'm not going to be there to help you. Don't leave anything to chance.'

Maour shook his head. "If it comes to fighting-"

'You'll be the match of any of them, but you won't win if the enemies you defeat come back to stab you from behind,' Toothless cut in with a snarl.

Maour nodded, not liking the advice but knowing where his brother was coming from. "I'll do what I can. But there won't be any fighting."

'If I believed there would be, I would suggest we strike first,' Toothless admitted. 'There should not be any fighting. Astrid and Dagur have held themselves in check so far, but assuming a pair of lunatics will be consistent isn't a good idea.'

"I'll be fine," Maour repeated, knowing it was the only comfort he could give. He embraced Toothless, hugging his stout neck for a long moment, and then stepped away to wave at Einfari. It was time. Hopefully, everything would go as it should.

* * *

"All you have to do is join in once Dagur gives you the opportunity," Astrid said in a low voice, hating how close she had to be to Snotlout to ensure nobody overheard, but bearing it anyway. All for the end goal, the hunt. No matter how far from that goal this particular annoyance was, it was still connected.

"You've told me that already, and it makes as little sense as it did the last time you said it," Snotlout complained, pulling away from her. There was only so far he could go, given they were both sitting on the same segment of rotting log, but he took full advantage of what space there was.

Astrid didn't care if Snotlout was annoyed she was telling him the same thing again. She didn't have anything else to do. Dagur and Savage sat on the log next to her, but she couldn't risk talking to him, and there was nothing to talk about. He knew his part in this plan, and she knew hers. The ships circling the island proved that Dagur was ready to act.

Everyone else atop the hill was unimportant. Astrid eyed the empty log across the unlit bonfire, anticipating the man and dragon who would soon be there, neatly penned in. Tonight's ploy would entrap the both of them.

Hiccup and his Night Fury were not the only ones absent, though sunset had come and gone a few minutes ago. The Order-keeper was missing, which was odd, but a few of his men were present.

Maybe she did have something to talk to Dagur about. "Where is the Order-keeper?" she loudly demanded, glaring directly at Dagur for a brief moment. He probably wouldn't know, but this was a complication, and their ploy didn't need-

"We should just start without him," Dagur replied, grinning crazily. "Maybe he got bored and left."

So Dagur did know what was up with that. Astrid felt a rush of anger. He was changing the plan without her approval. She wanted to kill him for that-

No, she shouldn't kill him. He was far too useful to her hunt. She just had to trust, however much she hated doing so. He wanted this to work as much as she did. Tonight would bring their goals together in more ways than one.

* * *

"Finally," Bertha remarked the moment Maour set both feet on the ground. "Something is wrong here."

"Not the welcome I was hoping for," Maour muttered, looking up. His enhanced night vision meant he could see Einfari and Nóttreiði disappearing up into the inky black sky. There seemed to be a cloudfront moving in from the East, judging by the lack of stars in that part of the sky. Perfect for Night Furies.

"What's wrong?" Heather asked, getting to the point. She didn't know Bertha at all, but that didn't seem to matter to her.

"The Order-keeper hasn't shown up yet," Camicazi replied flippantly. "Also, who in Odin's curly beard are you?"

"I ride a Night Fury and want Dagur dead; that's all you need to know," Heather said in response. "The Order-keeper is missing?"

"Or just late," Maour added. It was a possibility, albeit an unlikely one. Someone so important in enforcing the peace just _happening _to be late on the final, most important night was too coincidental.

'And so it begins,' Toothless remarked, reminding Maour that his brother was with him in mind, if not body. 'Be careful.'

"Thank you for the extremely innovative advice," Maour quipped nervously, sitting on the log. After a moment, he decided to be proactive, and took his scythe off of his back, laying the haft across his lap. Heather sat beside him, one hand on her ax at all times.

"Guess we should jus' get all o' this started," Mogadon grunted. "Tonight is the night for announcements and big things, right?"

"Alliances, war declarations, merging of tribes," Dagur called out merrily, smiling broadly. "New world orders, all of that. Anyone got anything boring and small before I start with my list?"

There was a general shuffle around the unlit bonfire as Chiefs and their seconds looked at each other uncertainly. Of everyone who could take over in the Order-keeper's absence, Dagur the Deranged was probably the least likely to want to or try.

"I think we're all wonderin' wha' the crazy man has got to announce," Alvin grunted. "Get on wit' it."

"Someone has to light the bonfire," an extremely welcome voice interjected. The Order-keeper walked out of the darkness from the Southern side of the island, flanked by three of his men, each of whom held a torch, the only real source of light on the hilltop, as none of the Chiefs had anticipated needing their own light with the bonfire being present. "I apologize for being late."

Two of the Peaceable Vikings who had escorted their leader threw their torches onto the pile. It caught, gradually growing and illuminating the entire hilltop.

'Maour, his knife,' Toothless mentally growled. Maour looked at the Order-keeper and saw that he was holding the ceremonial knife in his left hand and that the blade was literally dripping blood.

As if he had heard Toothless, the Order-keeper brandished the bloody weapon. "I was held up. Those doing the holding have been dealt with."

"Who'd be stupid enough to try and stop you?" Bertha asked curiously.

"And did they actually attack you?" Dagur called out. He sounded put out.

'By my guess, Dagur's men tried to kidnap the Order-keeper,' Toothless said worriedly. 'They are _definitely _planning something.'

"The rules are mine to enforce, _boy,_" the Order-keeper gritted angrily, glaring at Dagur from across the growing fire. "Stopping me from doing so is not tolerated."

"I don't remember that being a part of any of this," Dagur complained. "Show me where the peace says that."

"I have the entire thing written down," the Order-keeper retorted, "and keep it on me for insolent brats like you."

'Since when?' Toothless asked indignantly. 'Why didn't we get to look at that, if he had it all this time?'

Maour didn't have an answer for that. He definitely would have asked to see the entire thing written out if he knew it existed. Too late now.

The Order-keeper stuck a hand inside his metallic suit of armor, jostling plates around to reach something within, something stored at about the belt level.

"Not that great as armor if it can be shifted so easily," Heather murmured to Maour. Maour had to agree. The plates were all individually strong, but the Order-keeper wasn't really wearing them right if they could be moved. They should be strapped down, not loose.

The Order-keeper pulled a crumpled piece of parchment out into the open and held it out victoriously. "Here. Come read it if you do not trust my words." His tone was confrontational. "Your men died because they broke the peace, Dagur."

"Maybe, but I want to see it for myself," Dagur complained. He stood, leaving his ax behind on the log, and circled the bonfire to take the paper from the Order-keeper's outstretched hand. "Yes, I see a bunch of runes."

'Can he read?' Toothless asked curiously.

"I would assume so," Maour replied. There had to be more to all of this.

"I see a bunch of runes from the past that any honorable Viking would be ashamed to agree with," Dagur continued, throwing the parchment into the fire. "Since when do we need to make peace with our enemies and _talk_?"

Around the fire, Vikings put hands to weapons, some leaning forward and others standing entirely, though nobody moved. Dagur was questioning the peace. The same peace that held a dozen rivalries and ambitions in check, not just Dagur. Maour noticed Duncar of the Visithugs looking around consideringly, and Alvin was eyeing several different Chiefs covetously. If the peace broke, things could go bad fast.

The Order-keeper alone among those at the top of the hill did not seem the least bit impressed by Dagur's words. "You all signed in blood. Even you, Dagur. Feel free to not come next time, but for now, you are held by your word and the wrath of the gods."

"Am I?" Dagur giggled maniacally. "Well then, that's that. And you hold me to it?"

"I, my tribe, and the gods," the Order-keeper confirmed. "Now sit down_._" He gestured back at the log Savage still sat on. "I enforce order as well as peace, and we are wasting time."

Incredibly, Dagur didn't explode at being ordered around like a child. He also didn't try to kill the Order-keeper with his bare hands, which was what Maour was half expecting after Dagur's ominous words and laugh. Instead, he shrugged and headed back to his seat, saying nothing.

'He is not sitting,' Toothless noted suspiciously. 'He is standing.'

Maour thought he understood that; Dagur wasn't challenging the peace, not directly, but he also wasn't letting the Order-keeper be seen to order him around. He had been told to sit down, so he would stand. It was a simple act of defiance, one Maour would have expected from any Chief who knew they had to back down while saving face.

"Now, are there any announcements?" the Order-keeper asked. Once again, everybody looked to Dagur. They all wanted to know what he had up his sleeve.

"I've got a few," Dagur offered nonchalantly.

"Speak, then," was the annoyed response.

"Assorted Vikings and traitors!" Dagur began, looking directly at Maour. "You know who you are. Today is a day of glory and the Viking way!"

'Astrid is looking at you,' Toothless warned.

"Well, get on wi' it! We're waitin'." Alvin was clearly impatient to get to the actually important part of the meeting.

Dagur scowled at him. "Don't ruin the moment, Al. First, I am happy to announce that I am no longer single! The lovely Astrid Hofferson and I have gotten engaged!" He smiled at Astrid. Her eyes were cold, and she spared a long glance over at Maour.

'You've got to be kidding.' Toothless was extremely dismayed by that particular announcement.

Maour shared the sentiment, but he couldn't say anything. He put a few things together at that moment. Dagur liked Astrid because she was like him. Dagur had wanted a second-in-command for his armada. Astrid wanted to hunt dragons to extinction. Dagur had a grudge against the dragon rider Astrid hated above all else. And Astrid would do anything to further her goals. He should have seen this coming a mile away. It fit both of their motives perfectly. Dagur got a perfectly crazy wife and ally, and Astrid got a massive armada perfect for hunting dragons. Which, unbeknownst to her, was already extremely close to his home. This had gone from bad to catastrophic.

Alvin smirked condescendingly, his voice carrying just a hint of anger that didn't make much sense to Maour. "A fitting match. But aren't the 'offersons supposed to approve tha'?"

Dagur laughed mockingly. "Usually, yes. But chief Snotty here has negotiated all of the details in their stead. He gets to break the news, too." He grinned at Snotlout. "Have fun with that. And try to avoid the axes they throw at you for marrying off their daughter for them."

"I officially offer Astrid Hofferson to the Chief of the Berserkers in her family's stead, if she wills it," Snotlout announced hurriedly, looking positively giddy.

"Which I am," Astrid said, walking over to stand by Dagur's side.

"And I, of course, accept, and all of that," Dagur said mockingly. "There, it is official. Now, on to the second thing. Who wants to be a Berserker?"

Silence, a dangerous and ominous lack of any sort of reply. Everyone present knew what that meant, what Dagur was leading into, but it was not out in the open yet. He could still stop.

"Boy," Alvin growled, "even you're not crazy enough for that."

"Oh, I'm plenty crazy," Dagur flippantly replied, "and I'm giving you all a nice, _peaceful _chance to join my tribe here and now. That's what you all like, right? Peace?" The scorn in his voice was obvious now. "Why else are you here? Real Vikings fight each other, they don't talk. Yet here you all are, _weak _and _afraid_. Talking. Making alliances, tolerating enemies, worrying about the future. You've all forgotten what makes us Vikings."

Many of the Chieftains shifted uneasily. Some seemed bothered by his words, others angered.

"Some of us value our people more than our pride," Bertha lazily retorted, apparently unaffected by Dagur's condemnation. "And most of us have a bigger reputation for bloodshed than you do, crazy boy." The scorn in her tone was unmistakable. "Make your speech once you have a few years under your belt."

"I'm young and bloodthirsty!" Dagur yelled petulantly, his mood swinging in an instant. "You've all lost that same thirst! You're all weak!"

"The Visithugs raid and plunder regularly," Duncar the Dilapidator growled, pointing a meaty finger at Dagur. "Call us weak and find out what our enemies think."

"Oh, not you," Dagur casually replied. "You're fine, and so is Berk. Maybe the Outcasts. The _rest _of you, on the other hand, should take my offer while it stands and while _you _stand."

"What offer?" Trott, Chief of the Lava Louts, asked warily.

"Simple. Surrender to me now, and I'll let you live," Dagur explained, flipping his asymmetrical ax from hand to hand, looking at both sides of the blade in turn. "You'll all be Berserkers under me, and I'll show you what being a Viking means. I'll show you either way, but you get to choose which side you'll be on."

"The archipelago isn't going to become the Berserker empire, Dagur," Mogadon said scornfully. "We'll fight you to the last man."

"To the last woman too," Bertha added, looking over at Mogadon. "Some of us care more for our people than the words of mad little boys."

Mogadon nodded at her, and then glared at Dagur. "I don't think you're getting any takers on that offer, boy."

'Why are they all calling him that now?' Toothless asked quietly, only heard by Maour.

Maour knew the answer, though he wasn't going to reply to Toothless right now. The Chieftains were all older than Dagur by several decades, and calling him 'boy' reinforced their seniority. It was a deliberate sign of disrespect.

"Then I'll wipe your puny tribes off of the map and take whatever remains to make into proper Vikings," Dagur threatened. "All will either be allied with my tribe… or destroyed by us. The Berserkers are the ones best suited to lead the Vikings against our mutual enemy."

"What enemy?" Camicazi asked, voicing the question Maour was worried he knew the answer to.

Sure enough, Dagur pointed right at him. "Him and what he does for fun. The dragons. Have you all forgotten them?"

Maour was suddenly the subject of quite a bit of attention, and Heather got some eyes as well. Dagur had brought up something all of the Chieftains had an opinion on, few of which were good.

But Maour wasn't going to take that lying down. This was not about him or his people. "It's hard to make a peaceful group the bad guys, Dagur. I don't think anyone is going to be gullible and stupid enough to buy that."

"The dragons have always been the enemy," Astrid said coldly, speaking up for the first time since Dagur had begun unravelling his ambitions. "And always will be, until none exist."

"Until then!" Dagur loudly agreed. "But we're going to get to that glorious day. Together, all of us, under the glorious Berserker banner!" The maniacal grin on his face said it all. That was what he wanted, more than anything.

"Together," Astrid agreed, standing beside Dagur. She drew her ax, pointing it at Maour. "Starting with this traitor to his own people."

"The peace holds," the Order-keeper said sternly. "Speak all you want, but take your disputes off this island."

"Sure, sure," Dagur agreed, waving his ax at the Order-keeper. "Off-island. Got it, old man." He seemed to lose interest, turning to poke at the fire with the blade of his ax.

'Doing that will damage his weapon,' Toothless chortled.

Maour had to agree with that. Even if the fire was not hot enough to melt or even scorch the metal, the smoke would tint the blade and dirty the entire weapon, and there was-

Dagur laughed triumphantly and stuck his other hand close to the fire, grabbing a partially burning branch that he had maneuvered out with his ax. Heedless of the very likely agonizing pain, he lifted the branch out, swung the burning tip around, and then threw it as high as he could into the air. The fiery piece of wood traced a lopsided arc in the air, landing well down the hillside, where it burned for a few moments before dying away, luckily not catching anything else alight.

"Try not to burn the island down around us," the Order-keeper said dryly. "Are you finished?"

"For now," Dagur murmured sinisterly, looking around with fey, calculating eyes. He didn't move back to his tribe's log, instead crouching so close to the fire that Maour wondered whether his hair would spontaneously combust.

"Well…" Aldir cleared his throat, drawing everyone's attention away from Dagur. "I would like to announce a new trade deal between my tribe and the Waxears."

That announcement was met with silent apathy. Nobody really cared.

"That's about what I thought would be the reaction," Aldir admitted. "Does anyone have anything better?"

"I've got one," Alvin grunted, not even bothering to stand. "The-"

An angered yell of surprise rang out from behind Alvin, down on the shore, cutting him off. Maour kept his attention on Dagur and Astrid; it would be just like either of them to take advantage of a distraction to do something.

The Order-keeper, on the other hand, turned immediately. "Aldir, your men are squabbling down there."

"Are they?" Aldir rose to go stand at the edge of the hill's summit, looking down. "Not just arguing, our tents are on fire!" He left without another word, hastily running out into the dark, the nondescript Waxear who had come with him to the meeting following behind.

Alvin laughed roughly. "Wha' sorta Chief brings tents that aren' fireproof?"

The Order-keeper looked over to the right, further down the beach. "The Visithugs. Their tents are burning."

"What?!" Duncar the Dilapidator yelled. "I'll see heads roll for this!" He left just as quickly as Aldir had.

"Two different tribes havin' accidents at the same time?" Bertha said suspiciously, eyeing Dagur. "I think the rest of us had better go make sure there are no other _accidents_."

"Einfari says there are more fires breaking out," Heather hissed to Maour, keeping her voice low. "All over the place."

"What's going on?" someone yelled angrily. Everybody was either leaving the hilltop or looking down at the rest of the island. Even Astrid and Dagur were looking out at their own campsites, lingering on the edges of the summit. Maour didn't feel safe enough to turn his back on them even now, but he didn't mind Heather turning around to get a look at what was happening.

"Men, spread out and find the culprits," the Order-keeper was saying in a dark voice, addressing the Peaceable Vikings who accompanied him everywhere. "Stop fights that break out; Chieftains slaughtering each other over this would be a disaster."

Then he raised his voice, addressing the now extremely preoccupied Chieftains that remained. "Everyone is free to go, but the peace holds on this island!" He shot a very pointed glare at Dagur, who wasn't even paying attention, staring out at the island below. "My men are going to find out what is going on."

"I say it's dragons," Lewin announced spitefully. He pointed a crooked, spindly finger at Maour and sneered. "Setting fire to everything seems like the work of a dragon, and we don't see his around right now, do we?"

'He's just mad you outed his Chief's intentions last night,' Toothless grumbled.

"What would I have to gain? The fire targeted people who _don't _particularly hate me," Maour retorted.

"Don't fight; I'm leaving to deal with this," the Order-keeper concluded, descending down into the darkness beyond the range of the bonfire.

'He's just going to leave?'

Maour shrugged. "I guess so." Dagur and Astrid weren't doing anything at the moment, staring down at the rest of the island, and half of the Chieftains had already left to go put out their own individual fires. Men ran in the darkness between the hilltop and the shore's multiple blazes, indistinct at any great distance. It was chaos down there.

A distinctly unsettling feeling dropped onto Maour like a physical thing. Attentions were being scattered, the Order-keeper was distracted, his allies mostly gone to handle their own tribes and protect against what he suspected was a move by Dagur.

"We need to go now," Maour murmured, beginning to back away, slowly moving around the log as he did. "I don't like this."

"Agreed. Einfari and Nóttreiði are circling around; we just need a place they won't be obviously visible grabbing us from." Heather gestured behind her with her ax. "Down in the dark."

A few dozen steps down the slope would do it. Maour saw her point, and carefully began to sidle over to her. It was best they disappeared without anyone noticing they had left.

Anyone being Dagur, Astrid, or maybe Snotlout. Actually, Snotlout was gone, presumably to deal with the-

Wait, the Berkian tents had been set ablaze? Maour stared at Dagur's back, not understanding what was going on. Why would he do that to the Berkians, if this was his work? Astrid was gone too. Maybe he planned on stabbing her in the back too.

"Astrid left with Snotlout," Heather said, surprising him with how accurately she had guessed his thoughts. They were near the edge of the bonfire's circle of light, now, and steadily moving down. "If this is a plan it's a mad one. The fire is spreading to the grass."

'It will not burn the whole island; that grass is bad fuel,' Toothless said confidently. He would know, being a natural expert on the subject.

"We won't be here to find out. Our allies can leave on their own." Heather dropped all pretense of secrecy and began to walk down the dark hillside, becoming a silhouette the moment she was far enough down, even to Maour's eyes. He followed, more than willing to call all of that a success and get out. All of their precautions might have been for nothing, but-

He never saw them coming. The moment both he and Heather were entirely out of sight of the summit, what had looked like nothing more than lumps on the grassy slope rose and grabbed them both by the legs. Maour tumbled forward, entirely caught off guard, and yelled for half a second.

Then his face was being pushed into the grass, and his arms pinned. A weight pressed down on the small of his back, threatening to break something if it didn't let up.

'Maour!' Toothless shrieked in his head. 'Einfari, where is Einfari?!' He sounded beside himself in anger and helpless fear. Helpless, because he was stranded on a sea stack and unable to do anything.

Maour was regretting the decision to leave Toothless behind _now, _with his face pressed into the ground and his back feeling as if it was about to be snapped by whoever was kneeling on it.

"Perfect," a maddeningly smug voice Maour knew all too well said happily, though in a quiet, hushed tone. "Now, sister, I invited you to my ship politely, and you said no. And you, Hiccup…"

"He's mine," Astrid hissed dangerously from somewhere nearby, and Maour's heart sank even further. Where was Einfari? She could be mentally roaring at him; he would hear that. Heather was in communication with her no matter the distance, though she might not be able to say anything to Einfari if her face was also pressed into the ground like his.

In any case, Einfari and Nóttreiði were close. They had been flying in, so they should be around. They should be doing something.

No, they shouldn't. Einfari was intelligent and her brother was cautious about her getting hurt. Einfari could hear through Heather's ears if she wanted too, so she probably knew Heather was in no immediate danger.

'Fight back if you can,' Toothless snarled. 'But not at first. Let them get you up; pretend to be dazed by the fall.'

That wasn't a bad idea, and as Maour had absolutely nothing of his own planned, he was fine with trying it.

"Get them up," Astrid continued. "We want them on the ship and deep in the brig before anyone goes looking. Keep Hiccup alive."

"Not coming with me?" Dagur asked petulantly. The Berserker pinning Maour shifted, grabbing him by the forearms instead of just pinning them, and with a quick, practiced movement, hauled him up and wrapped a meaty forearm around his face, gagging him more effectively.

"There's a Night Fury somewhere on this island; Hiccup goes nowhere without his guardian demon," Astrid said enthusiastically. "It will come and attack you. I will kill it when it does."

"And my men will shoot it out of the sky if it comes from that direction," Dagur agreed giddily, stifling his maniacal laughter with a hand to his own mouth. "Quietly, of course."

'They'll never hit anyone in the dark,' Toothless said stubbornly. 'I wish I could talk to her somehow!' He knew Maour could only hear him because their link transcended distance. It did not mean Toothless could be heard from any great distance by anyone he was not linked to.

'Maour!' It was a faint, distant cry, and one that came on an entirely mental level. Einfari was finally making contact. 'You have to break loose on your own! Nóttreiði will not let me get close to them.' She sounded angry and frustrated.

'Nóttreiði…' Toothless snarled. 'He is putting you in danger. She could easily get to you both. Why does she obey him? He has no power over her.'

Maour was glad he couldn't respond; he didn't want to be the one to remind Toothless that he was currently helpless because he had listened to his brother, but somehow he knew he would have said that were he able to speak.

"Come on," Dagur insisted, walking into Maour's limited line of sight. The Berserkers who had apparently been lying in wait, four by Maour's best guess, followed along, skulking in the dark. This involved half-carrying and half-dragging Maour, who hung limp, playing to Toothless's plan, as he had absolutely nothing better to try. He couldn't even see Heather, who was off to the side somewhere, or Astrid, who was lurking in the darkness nearby, waiting for an attack that wasn't going to come.

"Fool."

The Berserker carrying Maour stopped dead in his tracks, as did Dagur and presumably the rest of the group. Dagur shrugged his shoulders unhappily. "I am having bad luck tonight."

"I saw right through that pathetic excuse for a diversion," the Order-keeper revealed, stepping into the edge of Maour's view. He had his blood-soaked dagger out, but nothing else, and looked far more confident than Maour thought he had any right to be given he seemed to be alone.

"I'll pay you to look the other way," Dagur offered. "I'm not even hurting them. Hiccup here actually did trip; my men had orders not to strike." He sounded surprisingly calm and reasonable.

"I'd be more inclined to follow the letter of the law and not the spirit if you had not tried and failed to abduct me earlier," the Order-keeper replied scornfully. "Now, I want-"

The Order-keeper was cut off, both literally and figuratively, by something jabbing into his side, up through the place his armor had been loose, something that looked like a makeshift spear, though it was too thick to be that.

Astrid stepped out from behind the Order-keeper, twisting the stake she had driven through his side before yanking it out and watching him fall to the ground, out of Maour's line of sight. His pained, incredulous gasping could be heard, watery and getting weaker.

"Nice stab; you got him right up into the lungs," Dagur said nonchalantly, smiling at Astrid. "Have fun facing the gods sooner or later."

"As long as they judge me after I'm done hunting, I don't care," Astrid asserted vehemently. "Now get moving. I wanted to do that to a Night Fury, not a human idiot."

Just like that, they were moving again. Things had gone from terrible to downright horrific in seconds. The peace had not held Astrid.

Maour was, for a brief moment, grateful that Toothless had been talked into staying behind. If he was on this island, he would be in immense danger, especially now that at least one homicidal woman with an ax had stopped following the peace that had afforded some small measure of protection.

"Boss," the Berserker carrying him grunted, "I didn' hit 'im, bu' he's not movin'."

"Lucky," another said angrily. "Mine bit me."

"Poor, fragile Hiccup," Dagur sighed, not even looking back. They were only a few minutes away from his anchored ship, and once they were below deck, they were in serious trouble. Something had to happen, and soon, but all Maour could think of was to keep playing dead until the Berserker carrying him dropped his guard. From there, he could…

What? He still had his scythe, but it was on his back where he had put it in anticipation of being picked up by Einfari and not wanting it to hit her. The peace no longer really held, and if it had, Dagur had broken it already, so he could fight, but would he be able to get Heather back with Dagur, his men, and Astrid all ready to stop him?

Conversely, would he be able to leave her? No, of course not, and Einfari wouldn't either. There wasn't any good way out of this that didn't involve Heather freeing herself. If they were both free, they could just run for it, because the moment they were far enough away from the Berserkers, Einfari and Nóttreiði could swoop down and grab them as planned.

He would have to go for the Berserker who had Heather, take him out, and hope they could both get away quickly enough. There was no other choice, not when Einfari couldn't come down to help, thanks to whatever it was her brother was doing to hold her back.

Maour knew in a distant corner of his mind that once he and Heather were safe, that was going to be a problem. Toothless was _not _going to let Nóttreiði's actions go unanswered. But at least facing that issue would mean they were not facing this one any longer.

"Stay away from the fires," Astrid hissed from somewhere apart from the group. Dagur was heading directly toward a smoldering ruin of tents. Those would be the tents set up by the Meatheads, if Maour had to guess, given their position. There didn't seem to be anyone there.

"They've all starting hunting for the ones who burned their precious stuff," Dagur giggled. "Maybe they'll all kill each other."

"There are people moving in the dark," Astrid countered quietly, barely loud enough for Maour to hear. "Stop risking this. I want that Night Fury and I want Hiccup, not mistakes that lose me both."

"Touchy," was the only reply she got for a long, tense moment. They were nearing the beach now, and Maour could tell that the Berserker carrying him was beginning to tire. Small for a Viking or not, he was not _light _to any human, not when carried as dead, limp weight. The Berserker began to shift his limp form around, trying to transport him in a less difficult way. Maour had a very hard time remaining limp when he was tossed over the large man's shoulder like a sack of grain.

'This is your chance!' Toothless said excitedly. He was tapping into all five of Maour's senses now, something neither of them ever really did, as it meant one was totally senseless in one's own body. He could feel Maour's arms hanging loosely, could see them dangling by the Berserker's belt and weapon hilts. A knife and a bludgeon. One was worthless and the other priceless.

Maour could also see Heather now, and the Berserker escorting her. She was walking on her own two feet, her hair and arms all gathered up behind her by the Berserker holding her. His other hand was over her mouth, though he had apparently learned his lesson and had removed one of his pauldrons to keep between his fingers and her teeth.

She could see him. The guard escorting her could see him just as clearly. He had to keep playing at being unconscious until he was entirely ready to make his move, but that would not be long-

Heather's eyes widened as both her guard and Maour's stopped once more. She was looking at something behind him, something exciting, not scary.

"Out of my way, Meathead," Dagur blustered. "This doesn't concern you."

'Mogadon? Maour, go now!' Toothless urged. 'They are distracted!'

Maour hesitated. He had a feeling he knew how a typical Viking would react to the situation Mogadon found himself in, and he was expecting a much better distraction in a few seconds.

"Oh, I think it does," Mogadon replied. "So hand them over, nice and slowly. My son and I might just forget what you were doing."

"My armada could raze your fleet without breaking a sweat," Dagur said confidently.

"Maybe, maybe not, but they're not here _now_."

"It's two on five."

"A Meathead in a fight is worth three Berserkers running away," Thuggory said rudely. It was no surprise he was here; Mogadon had just said as much. Maour wished he could see what was going on.

"Let's fight, then!" Dagur crowed. There was a surge of movement, a clashing of weapons, and the booming laugh of Mogadon.

"And I'll not even have to answer to the gods for this!" Mogadon was exclaiming triumphantly. "You will!"

Maour felt himself being swung around as his guard, true to Thuggory's scornful prediction, tried to turn and run. But this was the moment Maour had been waiting for. He seized the hilt of the dagger on his captor's belt, pulled it out, and stabbed downward. Killing wasn't his style, but his captor was going to have a hard time sitting for a few months, and it did the trick. Maour was flung to the side almost immediately.

He hit the ground with a thud, unwilling to roll lest he stab himself with the dagger he had managed to hold onto, and got to his feet just in time to leap to the side again, dodging a bludgeon that was _definitely _aimed to kill. Who knew that stabbing a Viking in the rear end would make him mad enough to forget the peace? Aside from everyone who had ever met a Viking, that was.

'We are coming, get clear!' Einfari mentally roared. Whatever reason Nóttreiði had for blocking her from mounting a rescue before apparently did not apply now, for the little good it did.

Maour turned to where he had last seen Heather's captor and ran forward, narrowly avoiding another slow, obvious swing of the bludgeon. A few feet away, Mogadon, Dagur, two Berserkers, and Thuggory were fighting in a loud, frantic clashing of metal on metal and occasionally metal on flesh, loud clangs and sickeningly muted thumps accompanied by screams and yells.

Maour had turned to free Heather. What he saw, however, implied he shouldn't have worried. She was standing from the fallen body of her captor, ax in hand, and pointing behind him with a frantic look on her face-

He knew what that meant and was entirely aware the guard was still after him. A quick step to the side bought him another second, and if he had been in the mindset to kill, he could have ended it there.

He should have ended it there. That was what Toothless would have done, what he had advised time and time again. But Maour didn't see any reason to kill. Heather turned and ran as the Berserker spun and lunged for Maour again, so she was away safely.

'Get clear!' Toothless roared.

"I know!" Maour yelled back, easily side-stepping yet another swing of the bludgeon, and then less easily dodging a faster punch from the man's other arm. "Give me a second to work with!" He didn't have time to get his scythe out, and a dagger was not going to hold up against a bludgeon unless he got in close and went for the kill, which was the opposite of what he wanted to do.

The laughing and screaming coming from behind certainly wasn't helping him concentrate, either. It sounded like Dagur was having fun, and Thuggory was yelling something incoherent, while Mogadon couldn't be heard at all.

Maour waited for a brief moment as the Berserker facing him visibly tried to decide what to do next. If he turned and ran, the man would just lean forward and grab him, so he needed to let his opponent commit to something first.

Something like swinging another wide, poorly aimed jab at his face. Maour smirked despite the seriousness of the situation, stepped back, and ran. Heather was already gone-

'Arms out, keep running, don't stop!' Einfari mentally roared, still holding back on any audible sound. She wouldn't give herself away. Maour did as told, though running with his arms out to either side made him feel like a small child trying to convince himself he could fly.

Then two sets of strong claws gripped his shoulders, a force yanked him forward, and he felt like his neck and lower back were going to break, bent backward by the force of Einfari's grab. The horrible pressure didn't relent for several long, torturous seconds as Einfari pulled up and sped up, moving out of reach of those on the ground.

Once she leveled out, the pressure on Maour's body eased up, and he found himself breathing again, though he did not remember stopping. "Gotta… work on… that part. Hurt." he panted. His neck and back were going to be very, very sore.

'Will you live?'

"Yeah," he replied honestly. "But... much faster and... I might not… be able to say" Breaking one's neck was pretty much guaranteed to be fatal, and he felt like he had come pretty close just now.

'I will be more gentle next time,' Einfari whined. 'Nóttreiði, what of Heather?'

'I did not hurt her,' Nóttreiði replied sullenly, pulling up beside Einfari. 'She was already injured when I grabbed her.'

"I ran right into Astrid," Heather explained, her voice tight with pain. "She got me in the leg before I could get away."

Maour craned his aching neck to the side to try and see Heather. There were no marks visible on her in the dark, but he could only see her left side. "With her ax?" he called out worriedly.

"With that stupid stick," Heather replied. "I'm fine." She didn't sound like she was fine at all.

Maour noticed lights passing beneath him, and looked down. They were circling back around over the island, gaining height and angling in the direction of Toothless's sea stack.

He had a great view of the entire island for a few seconds. Small fires littered the entire surface of the island, most dying out even as Maour watched, dimming and shrinking like individual embers. Some of the ships formerly anchored in the shallows were weighing anchor, shoving off, while others lay dormant. Tiny sparks of light moved around in some places, Vikings carrying torches. The sparks were never alone, always travelling in groups of three or more.

Maour noted each of his allies as Einfari passed over. The Bog Burglars and Waxears were already out at sea, sailing through the gaps in the circling formation Dagur had created out of six of his seven ships. They didn't seem to be meeting any resistance, and they weren't the only ones leaving. The Visithugs and Outcasts were also already on their way out.

Maour realized with a wave of relief that the Berserkers on the outer ships had no way of telling friend from foe for sure, not in the dark. They wouldn't attack anybody leaving by ship tonight.

That didn't mean he thought his allies were safe. War had just begun, and Dagur had almost struck a crippling first blow, one that could have gotten Maour, Heather, and possibly even Toothless captured or killed before the fighting even started. Only luck, interference from friends, and planning had gotten them out of it, and he still didn't understand how some parts of Dagur and Astrid's plan had been accomplished.

There would be time to think that over later. Right now, Maour was more worried about Heather's injury, Toothless's reaction to all that had gone on, and making sure their allies got out of this safely, not to mention coordinating what came next. War, for sure, but in what form?

The meeting might be over, and from the looks of things there might never be another, but Maour knew none of his own troubles was anywhere near as finished with.

**_Author's Note:_ ****Next chapter will continue directly from here, so a lot of your questions have an imminent answer incoming. I'm not even going to bother making a prediction as to when next chapter is coming; I do still want to stick to the 'weekly on Thursday' schedule for this story, but life seems to have a way of throwing every possible complication at me, not to mention the normal complexity of my schedule. My other stories are only proceeding on time because they're already written and don't need rewriting. But I am going to _try _to keep to this story's schedule.**


	27. Chapter 27

_**Author's Note: **_**To the Guest who asked if this was abandoned: NO! Abandoned stories are my pet peeve, and no story of mine will ever be abandoned. This story has been on a rocky schedule recently, but that's unavoidable for me, and hopefully nearing a stabilization, if not an end. This story **_**will **_**continue and **_**will **_**be completed eventually. I cannot stress that powerfully enough. I'm hoping to ease into a bi-weekly (the longer one) posting schedule for the time being, and then back into weekly once I get my buffer back.**

Toothless was _furious_. He paced along the perimeter of the sea stack he had been left on, waiting impatiently for his brother and the others to arrive. Waiting for the Night Fury who had almost ruined everything to come within reach.

Toothless wasn't sure what he was going to do to Nóttreiði once he had him, but jumping him, pinning him, and roaring in his face was the definite first step no matter what came after. Nóttreiði deserved to be roughed-up; he had almost gotten Maour and Heather captured for real. Why had he held Einfari back? Why had she even listened to him when she was the one who was supposed to be telling him what to do, not the other way around?

All questions Toothless would get answered _after _he let off some smoke by slamming the male Nótt into the sea stack and roaring at him.

"We're coming in fast; can you be ready to catch Heather and me if we stumble too far forward?" Maour asked, distracting Toothless from his thoughts of vengeance for a brief moment.

'Why would you stumble?' Toothless asked, moving into position anyway.

"Aside from the moving landing, I don't know how gentle Nóttreiði is going to be with Heather."

Well, that was as good a reason as any. Toothless eyed the two rapidly-approaching shapes, each composed of a Night Fury dangling a human from their paws. 'I can do that.'

'Let me drop mine first,' Nóttreiði called out, sounding as if he didn't know he had done anything wrong.

'I will circle around,' Einfari agreed in a tight, stern voice. 'Let go of her _gently_.'

Toothless braced himself at the edge of the sea stack, and watched Nóttreiði glide in. He went slowly, but only just slow enough, and dropped Heather just short of Toothless, pulling up to fly back out to sea.

Toothless might have snapped his teeth at Nóttreiði's tail, which almost slapped him in the face as the Nótt pulled up, but the gritted cry of pain and weight slamming into his side distracted him.

'Heather?' he rumbled, noticing a smell he knew all too well, one akin to wet iron. Blood.

"I'm fine," she groaned, obviously lying. "Just… give me a minute. Don't tell Einfari. She'll get worried over nothing."

'Prove you are fine and I will say nothing,' Toothless offered. He could see Einfari gliding around in circles with Maour dangling from her firmly gripping paws, waiting for Heather to move out of the way. They only had a few moments.

"I am telling you," Heather gritted, pushing herself into a standing position by leaning on his side, "I'm-"

Toothless could distinctly see the moment Heather stopped speaking. It was the same moment she tried to step away from his side. Her right leg quivered, and she locked her jaw, groaning despite her best efforts to stay silent.

'I am coming in now!' Einfari called down, sounding worried. 'Heather, you need to move!'

Toothless circumvented the need for Heather to move by shuffling around her and putting his body between her and where Maour would hit. He didn't think Heather _could _move right now, despite her protests that she was fine. She certainly seemed to have trouble just turning with him, though she seemed to think it preferable to standing on her own or just sitting down.

Maour landed on the sea stack running, and managed to stop just short of Toothless, skidding into him lightly enough that he barely felt it. "That part's not so bad," he said enthusiastically. "Getting a running start makes it doable, though we really should practice-"

'Maour,' Toothless barked. 'Come look at Heather.' He didn't really know enough to be sure, at least with humans other than Maour. For all he knew, Heather would insist she was fine up to the point where she was dying, or was exaggerating even now.

'Is there something wrong with her?' Einfari asked quickly, landing on the sea stack and immediately circling around to nose at her rider. 'I smell blood. Why couldn't I smell that before?'

"Look," Heather said, "I told you, Astrid hit me with her stick, not even her ax. It will be _fine._"

"Probably," Maour agreed, sticking a hand into one of the saddlebags Toothless was wearing, rooting around blindly for something. "But if there's blood, there's something to bandage."

"Fine," Heather agreed. She certainly seemed to be saying that a lot at the moment. "Einfari, can you go fly out around the sea stack and be sure there are no ships sneaking up on us?"

'On it,' Einfari growled, leaping off of the sea stack.

The moment she was out of sight, Maour frowned. "That's paranoid even for you," he said carefully, walking around Toothless, clean bandages in hand. "How bad is it?"

"Pretty bad," Heather admitted, finally confirming what Toothless had suspected from the start. "I'll be okay, but she doesn't need to see this or worry about it."

Toothless turned to the side, feeling he should see what Heather didn't want Einfari to, just in case Einfari asked about it later. He would feel better about telling her that it was nothing if he knew-

"Uh…" Maour said, kneeling by Heather, who was sitting with her legs straight out. "What, exactly, did she do?" There was blood pooling under Heather, though not fast enough for Toothless to really worry.

"That stupid sharp stake," Heather explained, shifting her weight to her left side. "She got it under my guard and stabbed me in the hip."

Toothless's eyes immediately went to Heather's hips, but he couldn't see anything, because he was on the wrong side.

Maour, on the other paw, definitely could see it now. "There?" he asked, pointing to her.

"No, on my _other _set of hips," Heather griped. "Yes. I can bandage myself."

"If you insist," Maour agreed, hastily handing her the roll of clean cloth strips. There was a lot of it, probably because he had packed with the idea of possibly needing it for wounds on a Night Fury. "Any other injuries?"

"No, it was a short fight," Heather replied tersely, sounding annoyed. "Help me stand. I can't get at it."

Toothless, satisfied that they were capable of handling Heather's injury between the two of them, turned his attention to the dragons circling the sea stack, and back to the justified anger he had totally forgotten while dealing with the injury of a friend.

An injury that was partially Nóttreiði's fault, as he had held Einfari back from rescuing them immediately. The rage came back full-force, and Toothless paced out into the middle of the sea stack, growling to himself.

Annoyingly, he could not act on his rage. Nóttreiði was circling the sea stack and nowhere near Toothess's admittedly limited reach. Interestingly, he was also keeping a large distance between himself and his sister, who seemed too busy watching for danger to take any notice of him.

If Toothless didn't know better, he would think Nóttreiði was trying to hide in plain sight, in the hopes that they would forget what he had done. But Toothless _did _know better; Nóttreiði would defiantly defend himself if questioned on holding Einfari back.

That didn't mean Toothless wouldn't feel better after knocking the Nótt around a little. That was what anyone who intentionally put Maour in danger deserved, at a minimum, though Maour might not agree with that.

'Nóttreiði,' Toothless roared, keeping most of his anger out of his voice for the moment, 'land, please.' It would be all the better if the attack came while Nóttreiði was not expecting it.

'I would rather not,' Nóttreiði roared back, getting just close enough to be heard. At this distance, he could probably dodge a shot if Toothless tried to fire on him.

'Why not?' Toothless asked, accidentally letting some of his anger creep into his voice.

'I do not want to die or be maimed,' Nóttreiði replied, keeping to his large circle around the sea stack. 'I am giving you time to calm down.'

'So you _are _aware of just what you did,' Einfari cut in, her voice acerbic. Toothless hadn't even noticed her catching up to her brother, and judging by the startled flinch, Nóttreiði hadn't either. 'Toothless's anger should be the _least _of your concerns, brother.'

'All worked out, none are dead, and you are untouched,' Nóttreiði said defensively. 'I am-'

'Missing the point,' Einfari snarled, pulling up beside him to glare at him directly. 'Tell me, what did you swear, to be allowed on this whole trip? Has it left your mind?'

'To obey _Maour_ and _Toothless_, not you,' Nóttreiði replied.

Toothless had almost forgotten about that. He could not quite remember whether Nóttreiði had ever flat-out refused to do something either he or Maour had said, and it didn't matter right now.

'Neither could _give _orders!' Einfari said tersely. 'And _you _cannot give _me _orders, but you did, and threatened to fire at them all if I did not obey! You are in deep trouble.'

'With both of us,' Toothless roared out, even more incensed. Nóttreiði had threatened to blast and probably kill Maour in order to keep Einfari from saving him? It was totally in-character for him prior to his recent attempt to turn over a new leaf, but it was maddening all the same.

But there was one other thing Nóttreiði had sworn much earlier on, near five years ago now. 'And what about when you swore to protect Maour?' he continued at the top of his lungs. 'You swore not to let him be hurt when you could prevent it!' That was the exact wording, if he recalled correctly.

Nóttreiði didn't reply for a short time, but when he did his voice was neutral, overly so, as if he expected what he said to be taken badly. 'Maour needed Einfari to escape. Einfari wanted to fly into danger. By protecting her I protected his chances of escape. In the long term I was protecting him by preserving his escape route.'

Toothless snorted incredulously. If nothing eise, the fact that Nóttreiði had called his sister Maour's escape route proved the whole thing a cynical rationalization, not a reason. Nóttreiði didn't think like that. Einfari was always his top priority. 'And the threat?' he said. 'How do you explain that away?'

'I never intended to follow through, of course,' Nóttreiði explained. 'I do not expect either of you to be happy with me, and I do not expect either of you to pass judgment, given I threatened your humans. Let Father hear of this and decide whether I did wrong."

'Got this all figured out, have you?' Einfari snarled. 'You think he'll agree that it wasn't worth the slightest risk to me to try and save Heather, and that you were helping me see reason.'

'I know I have angered you,' Nóttreiði said, not answering the question, which was as good as confirming what Einfari thought. 'I am still trying to do better, but I value your life and safety above theirs, and always will.'

Toothless wished he could get into the air. Even if he didn't dare risk anything physical out over the open ocean, he would like to be right there with Einfari, not stuck on the sidelines.

He turned to Maour and Heather. 'Maour, can you help me get out there?'

Maour froze halfway through wrapping a bandage around Heather's upper thigh. Heather shook her head. "Not right this second."

'I thought you were doing that yourself?' Toothless said curiously. He did not see why it mattered, but he knew his brother well enough to know the look of embarrassed awkwardness, and knew Maour would have preferred it that way.

"I would if I could," Heather agreed, "but my hands are shaking-"

"Probably from the shock," Maour mumbled.

"And I can't really see it well enough," Heather concluded. "So no, you're down a tailfin for a few more minutes. He is not fast at this."

"I haven't had much time to practice treating big, blunt stab wounds," Maour replied. "It's not easy. But I can do it," he hastily added, seeing the unease on Heather's face.

Toothless turned his attention back to Nóttreiði, who was still circling, trailed by his sister. 'You have to set down eventually!' he declared.

'Someone must watch to be sure none of those ships come near,' was the reply. 'I will set down when you come up to patrol.'

Toothless glanced over at the distant island. Ships were departing in all directions, but none seemed to be headed their way. For now, at least.

'Fine.' He could wait. It aggravated him that Nóttreiði was getting off so easily at the moment, but there was nothing he could do about that.

* * *

Nóttreiði's stomach was rolling like he had eaten a month-old rotten pile of fish heads, making him more than slightly nauseous. He flew faster than was necessary in his circular route, trying to outfly his feelings and discomfort.

Everything was so twisted and wrong, and he didn't know why he couldn't make up his mind.

Einfari had left him to his patrolling, visibly angry and frustrated with him. He didn't blame her, but he did at the same time. She _knew _why, but she didn't agree, even though it made sense…

Confusion reigned, and the odd apprehension he hated, the feeling of possibly having done something wrong, but not being sure about it.

It was all he could do to keep playing the persona he had created, to act neutral and sure of himself. If only he was sure of anything right now.

He went over his actions once more, trying to see them in his mind.

Stopping Einfari from diving to the rescue. Threatening to kill Heather and Maour if Einfari tried as a point of leverage to make her listen, all to ensure _she _was safe, whatever happened to the humans. That was good, surely. So why was he bothered?

He wondered if he had broken Einfari's trust and his own facade by threatening Heather so easily, even if explaining it as putting Einfari ahead of all might have fixed the damage done to the latter. It was necessary, though. The situation on the ground was dangerous and waiting for an opportune moment to save the riders was the right call.

But something still bothered him, else he would not feel like tossing up everything in his stomach to get it over with. Something aside from breaking Einfari's trust, as that was another, duller pain in his chest.

He heard very light flapping from behind him, and flinched. Einfari could only be heard at all when she was flying hard, which usually only happened when she was angry.

'I thought you were leaving me to this,' he said tentatively. There was no way she was out here just to fly with him; her angry wingbeats said otherwise.

'You promised me you are trying to change,' Einfari growled quietly. 'Did you lie?'

'No.' He had promised that with the idea of lulling the humans into a false sense of security, but in the back of his mind he had also at least considered the possibility of ending up changing anyway, if the near-impossibility of these humans being different turned out to be true. Therefore, he had not lied in that, at least not entirely.

'So why?' She snorted angrily. 'No, don't bother. My safety. But we both know I would have taken her back sooner or later, and delaying only brought more danger. You did not stop me for my safety.'

Nóttreiði made a quick circle, trying to turn and fly by his sister instead of in front of her, but she followed him too closely. He couldn't even look back well enough to see anything but her wings.

After a moment, he gave up and shook his head, answering despite being unable to see her. 'It was for you. There was no other reason.'

'I don't know if I believe that,' Einfari retorted. 'Seeing as you almost got what you wanted ever since you met Heather.'

'She was not close to death. Her brother wanted her as a living captive.' He knew that much.

'The wound she took says otherwise,' Einfari snarled. 'She could very well have died thanks to you.'

'What wound?' He hadn't seen her taken any injury in those last few moments, though his eyes _had _been mostly on Einfari as they swooped in to grab their targets while the moment of opportunity lasted, the one so close to perfect he couldn't stop her from taking advantage of it. He had grabbed Heather by the shoulders as she ran.

'I'm not telling you because you'd probably say something smug and I don't want to hear it.'

'Then don't tell me,' he retorted. The sick feeling in his stomach had intensified, and he wasn't sure why.

'Fine. If you're still trying to change, then you should feel guilty. She's obviously in a lot of pain. And if you're trying to get rid of her, you failed, because she'll live.'

'So you want me to feel bad about this either way,' Nóttreiði summarized. She was succeeding, though he didn't know why. He definitely felt bad about his actions.

'Her injury is your fault, and the only reason this didn't turn out worse was pure luck. I don't know whether you were sincere about anything you've said recently,' she said angrily. 'I cannot tell what you're trying to accomplish with all of this.'

Neither could he. 'Which is why I say let Father decide what I deserve.'

'He won't take your side,' Einfari promised.

'Maybe not,' Nóttreiði agreed. He himself could not be sure he had done right. He was not suggesting they tell all to their father in an attempt to escape justice. If anyone could actually untangle the mess his motivations and feelings had become, it would be their father, or possibly their mother. He certainly could not, and he was the one who had acted.

But he would keep trying, through this whole slow, likely uneventful night. If he found no answers, which was likely, he would just keep playing the part he had taken up, and hope his father could tell him what was wrong.

* * *

Heather did not sleep soundly that night. Her backside burned like fire, but she couldn't sleep on her face, and being anywhere near Einfari was out. The heat rising from her friend's body only made the wound throb worse.

Unlucky. That was the only way Heather could think of to describe herself. How else would one categorize being stabbed in the behind with a stake heartbeats before being airlifted to safety? She had held her own against Astrid for all of three seconds before seeing a chance to run, and that was when it happened. The moment she turned her back to the woman, confident the ax could not be brought to bear against her fast enough, the stake had come out.

Heather shifted again, trying to lie on one side while also not leaving her back out in the open, and mentally cursing the hard stone beneath her. Sleeping was torture. Walking was going to be painful. Even riding Einfari promised to be a difficult, painful task now. Until her wound healed, she was going to be in constant pain.

Still better than being a prisoner on Dagur's ship. That, at least, she could say. Things could be so much worse. What was a painful injury and some minor embarrassment compared to that? The embarrassment was not even that bad; Maour had seemed more uneasy with helping her treat her wound than she had been. Pain made one practical, it seemed.

She put that out of her mind. At least she _had _friends to help her.

A rustling sound caught her attention. Toothless leapt off of the sea stack, Maour on his back. They were going out to relieve Nóttreiði, which meant it was already past midnight.

A few minutes later, Heather heard a much lighter thump, that of four padded paws hitting stone.

Heather only then realized that she was unusually vulnerable at the moment. Einfari was not far, only a few steps away, but that was little protection compared to their normal, in which Heather slept under her friend's wing.

Nóttreiði walked closer. Heather gave no sign that she was awake, willing him to go away. He was a Nótt, so even if he did want her dead, he wouldn't do it now. He wanted his sister's good opinion, and there could only be one possible killer if Heather turned up dead in the morning, or just disappeared.

But all of that seemed like very little to defend her when she felt his hot exhalations on her side. He had to be looking right at her, to be so close.

What was he looking at? What was running through his mind? She would never know either-

'Sorry.'

With that, the as of late enigmatic dragon moved away, taking the place on the sea stack furthest from both her and his sister, leaving Heather to puzzle over what he had meant by that.

On the simplest level, he meant it. He was sorry. For what was obvious; he had held Einfari back from rescuing them immediately, and was therefore responsible for the injury she took in getting herself out of the enemy's clutches.

But Nóttreiði was not simple. He could be faking it, not feeling sorry at all.

The only problem with that all too likely possibility was motivation. Nóttreiði thought her and his sister asleep. There was nobody awake to witness his insincere apology.

But… did she know Einfari was asleep? Heather briefly accessed her friend's sense of touch, knowing that the feel of one's eyelids differed between true sleep and faking it, that of holding them shut compared to being relaxed. If Einfari was awake, this would lead to some awkward questions, such as what Heather was doing, but she had to know.

As it turned out, Einfari was definitely asleep, her body so relaxed Heather wanted-

Heather held back from crying out in relief as the idea hit her. She could just stay like this, so focused on Einfari's sense she couldn't feel her own agony.

Why had she not thought of this sooner? Heather went all in and took up all of Einfari's senses, reveling in the lack of pain. This was perfect, an advantage anyone who suffered would kill for. It didn't even have a downside; Einfari lost nothing but privacy, and at the moment there was nothing to want private anyway.

Her pain put aside, Heather found herself growing sleepy. But there was still Nóttreiði's intentions to decipher, and she had, before getting distracted, answered one question. Einfari was definitely asleep.

Two options presented themselves to her. Either Nóttreiði thought Heather was awake, and had apologized to strengthen his facade of trying to change…

Or he had thought her asleep, assumed he was totally alone and unobserved, and apologized to her in a way that she could never prove or even know about.

Either was exactly what she would expect of Nóttreiði, depending on whether he really was trying. There was no way to be sure which it was.

Heather resolved to not tell anybody about it. If it was meant to be heard, she wouldn't help Nóttreiði rebuild his credibility, and if he meant it to go unheard by any, then she wouldn't humiliate him.

Two different versions of her friend's brother. Either a cynical enemy waiting for her to lower her guard, or a cynical enemy trying to change, and fighting himself to do so. She hoped for the latter while suspecting the former. Luckily, in this case, the best response was the same either way.

Heather fell asleep feeling the easy rest of another's body, happily leaving her own pain behind for a time.

* * *

The next morning started oddly. She woke to find herself already standing, looking around furtively as she shuffled her back end out over the edge of the sea stack-

'Heather!' Einfari barked. 'Out of my head!'

Heather pulled away the moment she realized what she was doing, snapping back to feeling her own body instead of her friend's. The instant shift brought a burst of aching pain, and she compulsively groaned, rolling onto her uninjured side.

'Dare I ask?' Einfari growled, walking over to her. 'Seriously, what was that? I thought you were asleep.'

"I was," Heather groaned, sitting up to stare with blurry eyes at Einfari. "I woke up like that."

'Can that happen?' Einfari warbled, pacified by that explanation. 'It is too bad Maour and Toothless are not here. They would know.'

"I did kind of fall asleep using your sense of touch," Heather admitted, not wanting to leave that out only to have to reveal it later if Einfari brought it up with Maour.

'Why… your injury. It lets you avoid the pain?'

"Entirely," Heather confirmed.

'That's _useful_,' Einfari said enthusiastically, batting her tail against the ground in her excitement. '_Really _useful.'

"I mean, I am still injured, and I can't feel or move my own body while feeling yours," Heather clarified, amused by her friend's enthusiasm. "But yes. I actually got some sleep last night."

'Well,' Einfari said slyly, 'not really last night so much as this morning. It is past noon.'

Heather looked up at the cloudy grey sky skeptically. "It is?"

'Definitely. It was sunny a few minutes ago. I expect the clouds to blow away completely by nightfall. If the wind is right, it will be an easy first night of flying.'

Heather nodded absently, thinking about what Einfari meant. A first night of flying… "Are we going home, then?" It made a sort of sense, but there was way too much left undone here for the answer to be simple.

'We had better be. I do not feel comfortable travelling with Nóttreiði like this,' Einfari admitted sadly. 'I cannot tell what he is thinking, and I almost think he doesn't know either. Hopefully, Mother and Father can sort him out. I am just trying to get us home in one piece at this point.'

"That's a pretty negative way of looking at it," Heather observed, unsettled by how defeated Einfari sounded. "I mean, this wasn't as bad as last time." This time, Nóttreiði was the one holding back from potential conflict. At least he hadn't charged in and killed everyone involved. It could have gone much worse.

'He…' Einfari shook her head, dropping that line of explanation. 'He's either confused or playing a much deeper game than I can understand, and either is dangerous for him and us.'

Heather nodded, not wanting to say anything Einfari might take the wrong way. At least she had caught on that Nóttreiði might be faking his intent to change. "So what do we do?"

'We go home, tell my father and mother _everything, _and let them sort it out,' Einfari responded solemnly. 'This is too much for me, and I don't have any control over him. Even if Maour and Toothless stay out here, we're going home.'

That felt a lot like giving up, but Heather didn't bother arguing. As things stood, they were probably headed back anyway, and she certainly wouldn't be able to do anything useful for a while with this injury, so it was not as if she would be missing out on anything.

"Where is everyone, anyway?" Heather asked, looking around. The sea stack was empty aside from them.

'Nóttreiði is flying above the clouds, avoiding me.' Einfari growled in annoyance. 'Maour and Toothless are meeting with our new allies over on those ships.' Her tail flicked out to the right.

Heather eyed the cluster of anchored ships doubtfully. "That seems… reckless." After all of their paranoia _on _the island, she wouldn't have thought Maour or Toothless to be so careless, even if the owners of those ships were allies.

'They did not have much of a choice. Nóttreiði isn't reliable, and I wasn't going to leave you here alone or wake you,' Einfari explained. 'Besides, those are allies. Would they break their word?'

"No, but relying on someone else's word to be safe isn't a great idea," Heather replied. The events of the night before only strengthened that conviction. "Should we go over there?" She didn't particularly want to go anywhere at the moment, but it might be better if Maour had backup.

'No.' Einfari walked over to Heather and put a paw on her outstretched legs, holding them in place to make her point. 'You are resting now, not riding over to stand around and be in pain for no good reason.'

"I guess you're right." Both about Maour and Toothless not needing them to talk to their allies, and about her own physical state. Not feeling her body's pain didn't mean it was magically healed, and she wasn't going to be sitting comfortably in a saddle in the immediate future. No need to endure that before necessary.

* * *

After several hours of worried waiting, she finally saw Toothless flying in. As he landed, she demanded, "So? What's going on?"

'Well, our human allies made it out mostly intact,' Toothless offered.

"Mostly?"

"Mogadon took an ax to the arm," Maour explained. "He shouldn't be down for long. But Sigvard's son died in the fighting on the island, along with several other Rockbreakers. They got hit harder than the rest of the tribes, for some reason. Probably bad luck."

"Sounds like it," Heather agreed. The Rockbreakers wouldn't be anyone's first target. They weren't weak, but they also weren't strong, and there was nothing in particular to be gained by striking them specifically. From what she had been told, they weren't all that important to the alliance Maour had forged, aside from being one more tribe to add to the group.

'And what are we doing now?' Einfari asked hopefully.

'Going home.' Toothless purred happily.

"Really?" That felt too easy. "Shouldn't we be doing something?"

"The Chieftains know to bring their forces to Mahelmetan because Dagur's fleet is scattered around that area, but they need some time to get home and prepare their people for war," Maour explained. "It'll be a few months before all of this really breaks out. Two or so before Astrid and Dagur even get to the armada, and then they have to somehow gather all of their wandering ships together. We have time, and so do our allies."

"The reality of war with ships," Heather mused. It had never struck her just how _slow _all of that was. Now she was seeing it, thinking of how much she and Einfari could do with two or more months to prepare. The trip back only took two weeks, and that meant she had literal months to spare.

"Exactly. So we're heading back… now, really," Maour concluded, looking around. "Nóttreiði's still on patrol?"

'I still want to tackle him for what he did,' Toothless growled. 'He hasn't set paw near me yet, but he'll slip up sooner or later.'

'Let my father take care of disciplining him,' Einfari growled. 'If you attack him, he might try and kill you.'

"Besides," Maour added, "since when do you beat up on the people who anger you? I don't remember you tackling and roaring at me."

'You're not thinking back far enough. That's exactly what I did the moment we first met,' Toothless replied.

"No… Well, I guess, but that doesn't count!" Maour objected.

Toothless chuckled dryly, leaning to the side to let Maour dismount. 'Better than the alternative.'

"That's not much of an excuse." Maour began sorting through the saddlebags, repacking things to make more room in the bags. "Heather, are you and Einfari ready to go?"

'Definitely,' Einfari rumbled before Heather could answer. 'We are going now?'

"We may as well, if Nóttreiði will get over here. He has been flying for a while, but we can rest at nightfall," Maour reasoned. "Then fly through the night. No need to take chances on the way back."

Heather nodded, agreeing with that, and made to get into her saddle. Einfari leaned over to make it easy, but just sitting astride burned like fire. Luckily, there was a solution to that.

Einfari's sense of touch was a welcome change, just like the night before. Heather went all-in on the other senses, seeing no reason not to.

'Can you talk like this?' Einfari murmured.

That was an interesting question. Heather didn't see how she could. Fully accessing Einfari's sense of feeling meant abandoning her own, and when she tried to open her mouth or do anything, nothing happened… That she could tell.

Heather thought about the problem for a moment, and then tried to just make a noise. She would hear it in any case, and not being able to feel her body might not mean she couldn't use it.

Nothing happened. Not only did she not feel herself speaking, which she expected, but no sound came out.

Heather briefly pulled back to herself, ignoring the renewed ache that brought to her attention, and cleared her throat. "Apparently not."

'Too bad. But you _do _move a little no matter what. I can feel you breathing on the back of my neck. So you just cannot intentionally do anything?'

"Seems like it." She hadn't even thought about breathing, so it was good to know that wasn't an issue.

'Not even holding on?'

"Oh." That hadn't occurred to her either. "Probably not, no." That meant she couldn't do this in the air, as she would just fall off the moment Einfari jolted forward, dove, or just turned sharply enough to throw her. But the alternative was suffering hours of sitting on her injury and feeling it.

Or maybe not. "Maour, how much rope do you have?"

* * *

The trip back to the Isle of Night was slow and strange, at least for Heather. The time in the air was spent mentally inhabiting a body she didn't control and was unfamiliar with, one that flew and maneuvered on its own. Not being able to talk meant she could only distract herself with the alien sensations of flight and listening to the few conversations the others struck up.

Of course, she considered being rendered mute and tied to the saddle for hours on end vastly preferable to the alternative. Her injury was healing well enough, but it ached as if being freshly stabbed. Lying facedown on the saddle didn't help much, as every little jolt brought about by Einfari flying normally jostled her. Strangeness and boredom beat constant pain any day.

The pain couldn't be totally avoided, though. She felt every jolt in the time between landing for the night and going to sleep, a time she minimized as much as possible.

So, Heather got very familiar with how her friend flew and moved over the two weeks it took to return home. She didn't know if that would ever come in handy, as Einfari, unlike Toothless, didn't need her help or familiarity to fly, but she couldn't see how it would hurt.

That familiarity, along with the occasional muddled dream featuring Heather in the wrong kind of body, seemed to be the only side-effects of spending nearly every waking moment, and all of her time asleep, accessing Einfari's senses.

Which was good, if she wanted to keep doing it to avoid pain in the future. Maour, after being told what Heather was doing, had been extremely worried about unforeseen side effects, and she had ended up promising him to stop if anything even slightly off started happening, with either her body or her mind. He had even made Einfari promise the same thing, though he had also had the presence of mind to wait until Nóttreiði was out of hearing distance to bring up that potential issue.

Nóttreiði. Heather didn't know what to think of him, and Einfari's decision to just drop the problem in Nóttleiðtogi's lap, if Night Furies even had such a thing, was looking to be a great idea the more Heather considered it. Let the intelligent, cunning Nótt adults figure out what to do with him; they were even predisposed to side with Heather if it came down to their son's 'all humans are bad' mindset. She would have thought of it herself if she wasn't so used to being totally responsible for solving her own problems.

That decision, in turn, led to thinking about how her life had changed, and her hatred for Dagur, and Toothless's advice. All heavy, intricate topics that helped her pass the time…

When she could bear to ponder them, that was. Most of the hours of flight were spent just experiencing how it felt to ride the wind like a dragon. And when they finally reached the Isle of Night, after two weeks of uneventful flight, Heather thought it was fitting she saw the Isle through Einfari's eyes. Why, exactly, she wouldn't have been able to explain. It just was.


	28. Chapter 28

_**Author's Note: **_**This chapter marks a milestone, a big one. Not a milestone for this story, though. One for my entire repertoire. With this chapter, I officially pass 1,000,000 words published on this site.**

**And, weirdly enough, that's less than half of what I've written in this fandom (the rest is locked away in stories I've yet to finish, but will sooner or later). I don't think I'll have too much of a problem getting to 2,000,000 words. **_**Usurpation of the Darkness**_** alone is good for another 400,000.**

**But anyway, enough about mostly pointless numbers. On with the story!**

Heather wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but the Isle of Night looked exactly as they had left it, an apparently uninhabited island in the middle of nowhere covered in rolling hills, thick vegetation, and a mountain. Nothing had changed.

As Einfari dove, heading for the Nótt entrance to the caverns, Heather realized why she didn't know what to expect. The island had not changed, but in many ways, she and the two Nótts with her _had_. There was a schism between Einfari and her brother. Nóttreiði was even less transparent, too unpredictable for any of them to understand. The two Nótts had experience with the real world, now.

Was Einfari seeing the island with new eyes? Was Nóttreiði? Heather didn't know, despite using Einfari's physical sense of sight. She _could _tell Einfari was excited to be home; her muscles tensed and untensed in anticipation, and she put more speed into the dive than was strictly safe.

Once they were on the ground, Heather reluctantly pulled back to her own senses, knowing she shouldn't rely on Einfari when they weren't in the air. This was not an event she could passively observe from Einfari's back.

Nóttreiði landed behind them and hesitated outside the cavern entrance, looking in cautiously.

'You look like you are sneaking into enemy territory,' Einfari observed sourly. 'Not so sure of yourself now that you are here?'

'No,' Nóttreiði freely admitted. He left it at that, holding back from the entrance.

Einfari snorted in annoyance and walked into the cavern, roaring loudly. 'We are back!'

The response was quick in coming; from the sound, all three of the Nótts were home. It was only just past dusk, so that made sense. The mix of roars echoing through the caves was music to Heather's ears.

Joy was the first to make it to them, scrambling around a tight corner and into sight, tearing up small tufts of the moss that lined the cavern floor in her haste to push herself forward. 'Hi!' she barked, leaping at Einfari and crashing into her chest. Einfari took a step back, rocked by the impact. Was it just Heather's imagination, or was Joy a little wider and longer than she had been when they left?

'Hi to you too,' Einfari purred, nuzzling Joy. 'Please do not jump at Heather, though. She is hurt.'

"Not badly," Heather clarified, not wanting to spoil the moment. She was safe up on Einfari's back in any case; Joy wouldn't try to tackle her off of Einfari… Or maybe she would have, had Einfari not warned her. Necessary or not, it dampened the carefree mood.

'Brother,' Joy warbled, squeezing past Einfari in search of Nóttreiði. Heather twisted in the saddle, ignoring the new pain that brought, to watch.

'Joy,' Nóttreiði purred. He was pressed up against the wall, and didn't move away from it, though he did nose at Joy when she came close.

It was clear to Heather that he was hiding his injury, the series of gashes in the right side of his head that had not totally healed yet, a very visible wound if one could see that part of him. Joy could not, not when he was against the wall.

But Joy _could _tell that something was wrong, if not what. 'You're hiding something,' she complained petulantly.

Nóttreiði shrugged the wing that was not pressed against the wall, and closed his eyes for a brief moment. 'Yes,' he admitted. 'But you don't need to worry about that.'

'I want to know,' she retorted. 'Show me.'

'Perhaps it would be better if he showed us first,' Nóttskarpur announced, alerting Heather to the fact that she was standing right in front of Einfari, along with Nóttleiðtogi. When had they gotten here?

'We have a lot to tell,' Einfari said carefully, looking at her parents. 'And Joy should not hear some of it.'

Heather nodded in agreement. They had a long story, and Joy wasn't old enough to weigh in on all that her brother had said and done. Nóttleiðtogi and Nóttskarpur were the ones who needed to know.

'But first, welcome back, and we're glad you are all safe,' Nóttleiðtogi rumbled, looking at Einfari, Heather, and Nóttreiði in turn. 'That is just as important as what went on out in the world. Whatever it was, you survived and returned.'

Heather smiled at that. It was something she might have expected to hear from Skarpur, not Nóttleiðtogi. Somehow, it meant more coming from him, especially when he looked at her as he said it.

But the general goodwill that filled the Nótt cavern might soon disappear. Heather wasn't particularly looking forward to the results of the Nótt parents being filled in on all that had happened, but it was going to be a load off of her own shoulders, at the very least. They could handle it.

* * *

"She looks cold," Maour said, looking over his sister's sleeping form. Von was sprawled out in the entrance to the Svartur section of the caverns, physically blocking the way with her body as she slept. They couldn't pass without getting her to move. Whether or not they wanted to wake her was still in question; she looked exhausted, even in her sleep.

'I can fix that,' Toothless decided, walking over to his sister. He stopped just short of her and began flaming the stone around her, quickly heating it up while not flaming her directly.

Maour held in a laugh as Von began to stir, slowly stretching her paws in the direction of the warmth. After a few moments, she rolled onto the heated patch of stone, clearing the way.

"I feel like that might be a weakness," he whispered to Toothless. "Want to pass the Night Fury guardian? Give her a warm stone to sleep on so she moves out of the way."

'It does sound like an answer to a riddle devised by one of the Eldurs,' Toothless agreed. 'Want to see if we can lure her all the way out of the cavern like this?'

"No, she looks tired," Maour said, voicing his earlier observation. "Let's sneak by, warm the ground all around her on the other side, and let her sleep." There would be plenty of time for reunions later.

Toothless eyed the small gap created by Von's movement. 'I don't think I'll fit.'

"I fit," Maour replied, slipping by Von with no trouble at all. "Come on, just squeeze by." Toothless could also try going around, but that would mean entering the caverns through one of the other sections, trespassing in another family's territory, and would take much longer.

'If she wakes, I am blaming you,' Toothless rumbled, squeezing up against the side of the cavern. He brushed Von's side on his way by, and almost fell on top of her at an outcropping in the wall, but made it without more than a low growl from Von, who remained soundly asleep.

'We definitely should not wake her,' Toothless said as they left their sister, heading deeper into the cave. 'She is not usually a heavy sleeper. What has she been doing recently?'

Maour and Toothless by unspoken agreement passed through the main cavern without stopping, heading for the side cavern Cloey and Shadow usually occupied, the one Cloey had laid her eggs in. That was where their parents would be, if they were anywhere.

'Hello?' Toothless called out in a low voice, stopping just short of the side cavern in question. 'Anyone home?'

A happy warble greeted them. 'Kappi? Maour?'

"In the flesh," Maour declared, stepping around the stone and into the side cavern. Cloey was inside, curled around the same two eggs, the tops of which were barely visible along her side, covered by the end of her tail. "Sorry we're late."

'Not too late, though,' Cloey purred. 'I cannot leave these, so get over here!'

Maour stepped to the side to let Toothless pass and then quickly made his way to her, carefully stopping a few steps short-

Cloey growled at him, startling Toothless. 'What are you doing?'

Maour took a step back. "What?"

'I trust you,' Cloey said emphatically, lifting her tail to reveal the eggs. 'So why are you staying away?'

Maour hadn't even been thinking of Cloey's reaction. "It's not that," he protested earnestly. "I just didn't want to risk falling right onto them if I tripped or something!" He didn't think it even remotely likely, but there was no point in taking any sort of risk. Not when the lives at risk were so precious.

'We went over this before we left,' Toothless said casually, nuzzling his mother in greeting. 'Maour knows you trust him. Don't worry.'

'Sorry,' Cloey whined. 'I'm jumpy and irritable. How did you two even get in here? I asked Von to tell me when you got back.'

Maour exchanged a quick glance with Toothless, who shrugged his wings. He decided on the truth; Cloey might feel less safe when she heard the truth, but he wasn't about to lie to her. "We snuck past Von. She looked tired, so we didn't want to wake her."

Cloey's ears drooped dramatically. 'I didn't need to hear that,' she rumbled to herself. 'Stupid instincts!'

'I am going to be taking over in guarding the entrance,' Toothless volunteered. 'And what we did to get past Von would not work once we tell her about it.'

'That is reassuring,' Cloey agreed. 'Besides, she _is _very tired.'

"About that," Maour remarked, sitting with his back to the cavern wall. "What has she been doing?"

Cloey sighed tiredly. 'Everything. With your father out patrolling most of the time, she is my only relief, and I lean on her far too often. It does not help that she doesn't feel comfortable sleeping while watching the eggs.'

'Patrolling?'

'Oh, right. Dear, our sons are home, so you're fishing for five again,' Cloey said to the empty air.

Toothless figured out what she meant almost immediately. 'Since when?' he barked in surprise.

'Shortly after you two left.' Cloey purred smugly. 'It's very useful. I can fly and watch my eggs at the same time, even if I am not _really _flying.'

Maour's jaw dropped. "You and Shadow linked?" he asked incredulously. That was a new thing, a new way to use the link. One he didn't disapprove of, to be sure, but new all the same.

'I was paranoid and looking for ways to be safer. Being able to talk to my mate over any distance seemed like a huge advantage,' Cloey explained. 'Do you approve?'

'Wait, why does that matter?' Toothless asked.

"Maour clearly has his own ideas of how this ability should be used," Cloey replied serenely, "and I agree with them for the most part. If we make it normal for them to build relationships between friends, and heavily stamp out abuses of them, then we ensure that they are only used for good. Right?'

Maour nodded slowly. He shouldn't be surprised Cloey could so easily explain what for him had been mostly unconscious, the desire to ensure what he and Toothless had would be a model for how to do things, and not an exception in a line of abuses of power, one started by the Queen and enabled by the knowledge being spread.

'So?' Cloey asked, looking at Maour.

"I think…" He took a moment to actually consider it. "I think it is good as long as people do not get it into their heads that one _must _be linked with one's mate, or that all mates should be linked." He could easily imagine that going wrong in a thousand different ways.

'Oh, no, of course not,' Cloey agreed. 'I don't think I would even want it if not for the current situation. I certainly did not even think of it until now, despite years to think about the possibility.'

'What _is _the current situation?' Toothless asked impatiently. 'Remember, we do not know what has gone on. When we left, there was no situation.'

'I can answer that,' Shadow announced, walking into the cavern, 'but you should really go talk to Eldurberg and Fishlegs. They can give a full explanation. I can't, since my attention has been split.'

'We'll do that,' Toothless said quickly, eyeing the fish Shadow brought with him, '_after _we eat. Right, Maour?'

"Right." They were home, and everything was fine for the moment. The rest of the world could wait for a short while.

* * *

Nóttreiði was glad it had not taken long. He knew his parents were observant and shrewd, so he hadn't expected the easy, happy atmosphere to last, but it was a relief to be so quickly relieved of the burden of pretending all was well. His wound throbbed, slightly aggravated by being pressed into the wall, and he didn't want to hide anything.

So, when his father had so quickly suggested they take a walk through the forest, alone, he had jumped at the chance. Joy could stay behind with their mother and the others; they would not talk about anything that she should not hear.

Nóttreiði wasn't sure why they were walking instead of flying, though. Flight was even more private; they could be out above the water in moments. There was the slightest chance of being overheard, here.

His father led the way, casually padding through the forest, eventually breaking out into a clearing Nóttreiði didn't recognize. A few of the trees were scarred around the bases, and the canopy was oddly pruned in places, but it otherwise looked like any other unremarkable part of the forest.

'It is good to see you all back alive,' Nóttleiðtogi rumbled. 'But not unharmed. Heather displays pain with every movement, and you are hiding something on your forehead.'

Had his father really not seen it yet? No, of course not. He had swept by and led the way, never even looking back. 'I am not unharmed,' Nóttreiði admitted.

Nóttleiðtogi turned and caught sight of his now obvious wound immediately, growling as he eyed the injury, but he said nothing for a few long moments.

'It will be stiff and sore when it heals,' Nóttleiðtogi said quietly. 'Do not be afraid to rub it against a rock and scratch it, but be careful. The grey skin will not harden or grow scales.'

'Is that all you have to say?' Nóttreiði asked plaintively. He had _not _been expecting impersonal advice on how to handle the practical aspects of having a scar. Probing questions, definitely, cross-examination once his father had heard Einfari's side of the story, for sure, maybe even a preemptive lecture, but not this.

'Until I know what has happened and why you are marked very much like I am,' Nóttleiðtogi growled, still staring at the wound, 'that is all I can say. But what do you want me to say? Do you want a lecture on being careful? I am very sure you could use one. That injury did not come quickly.'

'No,' Nóttreiði huffed, feeling absolutely terrible. 'I don't want a lecture, or you saying I told you so, or… Or anything like that.' He had wanted his father's advice, not his condemnation. 'Can you just listen? And then tell me what you think? Whether I did right or not?' He couldn't decide for himself, so he needed his father to weigh in on it.

Nóttleiðtogi nodded slowly. 'I can do that. But are you going to tell me everything, or only the parts of your story that make you feel like you were in the right with whatever you did?'

'All of it.' He knew better than to ask for advice without giving the whole story, and besides which, his sister would be making sure both of their parents knew everything, as she saw it. Lying would gain him absolutely nothing.

'And you'll actually _listen _to what I have to say after, even if it does not appeal to you?' Nóttleiðtogi continued skeptically.

'Of course!' He didn't ask why his father doubted that; asking for advice _could _just be a ploy of some sort. But he wasn't trying to do anything except untangle his own actions, and that required honesty, not trickery.

As he told every detail of every event and every thought that went through his head, his father listened in stony silence, attentive and impassive. He told about disarming Heather, fighting the Skrill, his injured wing, and the fight with Dagur. Lying would only work against him, and no amount of reassurances would add credibility to anything he said, so he simply let it all out unchecked. While he normally kept his thoughts to himself, it was a relief to spill it all out in an undignified heap. By the time he told everything to the best of his ability, it felt like hours had passed, though he knew it was closer to a few minutes.

'So I do not know,' he eventually finished, feeling no lighter for having unburdened himself, 'why I cannot decide whether I was right or wrong, or how to feel about any of this, or… anything. I need advice.'

'Give me a few moments,' Nóttleiðtogi requested. He closed his eyes and stood there, motionless.

Nóttreiði waited impatiently, prowling around the marked trees as a way to pass the time. They seemed to have been clawed all around their bases, but not very thoroughly. He couldn't make sense of the marks, and that just made him angry. He couldn't make sense of anything these days. The world had become undecipherable to him. Even his own mind rebelled.

'You want advice,' Nóttleiðtogi rumbled, walking over to stand by him. They stared at the marked tree together for a moment. 'I have some.'

'Please,' Nóttreiði huffed. 'I _will _listen. I swear.'

'That is actually the first thing I wanted to speak of,' Nóttleiðtogi remarked. 'You need to stop swearing.'

'What?' Of everything he had heard, _that _was what he decided to say. 'Why?'

'Because you break your word just as easily,' Nóttleiðtogi said, his voice heavy with disapproval. 'I could point out the half-dozen examples in what you have told me, and you could reason them away, but the fact remains. You break your word without hesitation.'

Nóttreiði had no answer to that; it was true. He couldn't even remember thinking about it in some cases, and thinking back, it almost seemed like people expected him to break it…

'So I advise you stop giving your word,' Nóttleiðtogi continued, not seeming to expect an answer. 'Say "I'll try" and do your best to remember what you promise, but do not swear. It means nothing from you, and you throwing that kind of promise around just to break it weakens its power with the rest of us. If others see you breaking your word to no consequence, they will not feel quite so compelled to hold to theirs.'

'No consequences?' He had expected the exact opposite.

Nóttleiðtogi sighed heavily, still staring at the tree in front of them. 'What can anyone do to punish you for breaking your word? Banishment is too harsh and might not work, and I will not lay a claw on you. The only punishment anyone can lay on you is not trusting you in the slightest, and you are a Nótt, so that means very little to you.'

'I want to be trusted,' Nóttreiði objected. Part of his problem was that he _wasn't _trusted. Not even by Einfari, now.

'Then earn it back.' Now Nóttleiðtogi was looking at him, staring directly into his eye. 'It will take years, because you are a Nótt, and so is Einfari. But it can be done. Stop giving your word until you can make yourself keep it. Correct whatever lets you break it.'

'That will fix everything?'

'No. That might fix one thing.' Nóttleiðtogi shook his head. 'And it is the easiest part of this. You are clearly in the wrong when you break your word. The rest is more nuanced.'

'But you do have more to say?' That couldn't be it; he felt no better about himself.

'Of course. It's fitting that I brought you here.' Nóttleiðtogi pawed at the base of the tree. 'Here is where I have worked for years on end to fix myself. I started trying here. Do you want to know what I think is wrong?'

'That is why I asked.'

'You feel guilty because you know in your heart that Heather means you absolutely no harm. But you've worked against her at every turn, are responsible for her pain right now, and can't _let _yourself acknowledge just how horrible you've been.'

'That's not it.' He knew that wasn't the whole issue; his father's words had no particular impact. 'I am still making sure she is not a threat. It's possible she is, and it's possible she's not. I don't feel guilty about being careful.'

'Then why did you apologize to her in secret, when she was asleep?' Nóttleiðtogi retorted. 'Son, you are some unknowable mixture of my own bad teaching, inexperienced ways of thinking, guilt, and uncertainty. I am giving my best guess as to what is bothering you, but the truth is that what's bothering you in general is everything you've ever learned conflicting in your head. Until you settle on one way of thinking, that's not going to change.'

_That _had the ring of truth. 'How do I do that?'

'Go about your life as normal, except for where you need to improve. Follow my lead and try to welcome Heather into our home. In short, do what I have been asking or telling you to do since she arrived,' Nóttleiðtogi said wryly. 'My advice has not changed. I just hope you meant it when you said you would listen.'

'I had hoped for something I could actually do,' Nóttreiði growled. 'Something new and helpful.'

'When you haven't followed the old advice?' his father countered. 'It's hard for me to tell you what your next step should be when you have yet to take the first.'

Nóttreiði clawed at the base of the tree, adding his claw marks to the ones that likely came from his father. 'And if I don't?'

'I think you have found out what happens if you do not try to improve,' his father growled. 'Things go badly. You feel guilty. You end up even more confused. And it will always feel like the world is against you, because your allies, friends, and family cannot trust you completely.'

'If I do try?' Nóttreiði whispered. 'What then?'

'We want you to try,' Nóttleiðtogi replied just as quietly. 'It's hard, and it's frustrating, and it's slow. But the reward is clearing that confusion and knowing who you are. Not feeling like there are two worlds, and you are stuck flailing about in both, unable to pick one. You're a good person, and not letting yourself see the truth hurts more than admitting your mistakes ever could.'

'How do you know?' he asked, not really sure there would be an answer.

Nóttleiðtogi draped a wing over him, pulling him close. 'I know because a bad person would have embraced being a monster. If you were bad, you would have thrown yourself into it, hiding from your pain by inviting it until you were numb to the horror. It is hard to feel guilty or confused if one knows there is absolutely no lower one can sink..'

That was no comfort; he could remember thinking things scarily close to that line of reasoning, and if he could consider it…

'I can't tell you exactly how to improve,' Nóttleiðtogi murmured. 'But I can tell you that your sisters are the key. That much is obvious from what I know.'

Nóttreiði nodded. That didn't make much sense, but it felt right. Maybe he would figure it out later. But if he needed his sisters' help… 'What will you tell her?'

'Einfari? What she needs to hear to continue giving you a chance, while not speaking of anything that happened here,' his father hummed soothingly. 'I will not speak of this moment to them. To Skarpur, yes, because she is your mother and deserves to know, but not to your sisters.'

'And Heather?'

'Like I said,' Nóttleiðtogi rumbled, 'I will not speak of what either of us said here. But I can give her a frank assessment of you, if you'd like.'

'Which is?'

'I'm not telling you. You don't need to hear it. And it will mean more to her if I can truthfully say you agreed to let me give my assessment without knowing what it was.'

How was Nóttleiðtogi going to do that without talking about specifics? Nóttreiði decided he didn't need to know. 'Yes. Tell her.'

'One thing has improved since you left,' his father remarked. 'You trust me again.'

'When did..?' Nóttreiði trailed off, remembering the answer to his own question. He hadn't trusted his father when it came to humans, not for a long time. But now…

He still didn't understand his own reasoning, and his father had not given him the easy answers he had hoped for. Very little had changed. So why did he feel just a little bit better about everything?

* * *

'The pack is meeting in a little while to hear from Maour and Toothless,' a mental voice called out from deep in the cavern.

Skarpur tilted her head, looking in that direction. 'She could have come in here and told us more directly,' she murmured, 'but I appreciate the courtesy. Understood!' She roared the last part, making the cavern echo wildly for a few moments.

Heather covered her ears reflexively. Once the cacophony had died down, though, she had a question. "Why do you sometimes roar and sometimes not?"

'What do you mean?' Einfari asked, looking up from her somewhat one-sided wrestling match with Joy. The younger Fury took that as a chance to wriggle out from under her sister, successfully escaping, only to be absently pinned anew by Einfari.

"What just happened," Heather clarified. "The dragon telling us about the pack meeting didn't roar, but she was still loud enough. How does that work?"

Skarpur hummed consideringly, now understanding the question. 'I did not think about it,' she volunteered. 'I _could _have been loud without the roar.'

'It can be done without,' Einfari agreed. 'All I do to make myself loud is to _want _to be loud. Same for keeping my voice down.'

'But roaring makes it easier to want to be loud, because you're already doing so,' Skarpur concluded. 'It depends on intent. Maybe the Eldurs could explain better. I've certainly never given it a second thought.'

'Why the interest, anyway?' Einfari asked.

Heather shrugged her shoulders. "Just wondering." She didn't have any other motive; it had just struck her as strange. There wasn't much else she could do at the moment anyway, leaning against the far wall of the cavern in an attempt to take weight off of her injury.

'Skarpur,' a more familiar voice called from the other exit to the cavern, the one leading outside, 'could you and Heather come out here?'

Heather winced, shifting her weight back to both feet. That had been Nóttleiðtogi. Time to see what he was going to do with all he had been told… by Nóttreiði. This was going to be dangerous. 'Einfari?'

'He only called for you and me,' Skarpur admonished. 'Einfari, stay with Joy.'

'Got it,' Einfari agreed. Too easily, in Heather's opinion-

Then she felt Einfari accessing her sense of hearing, and understood. Walking out with Skarpur was not easy, not with her injury, but it was easier knowing that her friend was with her in mind. Skarpur even let Heather lean on her once the obvious limp caught her attention.

'At least it did not hit further up,' Skarpur remarked, moving slower so that Heather could keep up. 'You said Astrid got you as you turned to run?'

"Yes." She had been brief about that part for Joy's sake, but her injury had been easy enough to explain.

'How did you get away after?'

Heather didn't reply for a moment, too busy reviewing her memory of the fight. She had turned, been stabbed in the behind, and then stumbled away… too slowly to get away, for sure. Astrid must have let her try to flee…

"Astrid was hoping a Night Fury would land by me," she realized. "So she let me get a little distance, thinking she would have a shot at my rescuer. She didn't count on how we had planned to get away." The airlift tactic had paid off, big time.

'Obsession does make people predictable,' Skarpur purred smugly. They walked out of the cavern-

Skarpur surged forward, depriving Heather of her support and almost unbalancing her to boot, and stopped just short of running into her son. 'Nóttreiði, your face!' she exclaimed.

'Mom should not have left you,' Einfari remarked unhappily, commenting on the scene only Heather knew she could see.

Heather wavered on her feet, momentarily more concerned with staying upright. Skarpur had left her in the small clearing in front of the cavern entrance, and there was nothing for her to lean against. Lying in the saddle for weeks on end meant she wasn't in the best condition to start with, and her injury was making it hard to remain standing without support.

Then another Night Fury came up behind her and hesitantly offered the leading edge of his wing. Heather grabbed on without thought.

Then she wondered who was supporting her, and looked back.

Nóttleiðtogi. She was holding onto Nóttleiðtogi's wing.

'I won't bite,' he admonished quietly. 'I am… fine… with this. Besides, you need help.'

"Can you take me over to a tree or something?" Heather requested. "I can lean on something else if I can get to it." Or she could sit down, but that wasn't really a good idea. Her injury hurt enough as it was.

'Yes.' He slowly walked her over to the edge of the forest furthest from his son and mate.

Heather lurched away from his wing and onto the first tree she could reach, sparing no time. The moment she was off of him, Nóttleiðtogi folded his wing in and shivered slightly.

'It is not easy,' he said, looking directly at her. 'But I am trying.'

'Thank you. How..?' she began, before trailing off, leaving the question unfinished She was more than impressed. How had he improved enough to voluntarily touch her at all, if she hadn't even been around to get used to?

'I don't know,' he admitted, answering her cut-off inquiry. 'You are hurt, unarmed, and in no way dangerous. I just heard about how loyal you have been to my daughter, and of other things. But none of that is a real answer.'

Heather nodded. She was just glad he _was _improving. Especially as she hadn't put any effort into helping that along recently.

'I approve of how you conducted yourself,' he continued, surprising her even more. 'Everyone returned alive, there is a promising alliance available for the pack to consider, and you even somehow managed to avoid raising my son's ire in your direction, for the most part.' He purred quietly. 'This also goes for you, Einfari. I know you're listening. I will tell you myself later. Right now, though, I want to speak to Heather alone. Really alone.'

Einfari mentally barked in surprise, and then quickly pulled away from Heather's senses, acting like she had just been caught eavesdropping… which she had, in a way.

"She's gone now," Heather said, well aware that Nóttleiðtogi was going to have to trust her on that one. "But what gave it away in the first place?"

'Nothing. I simply assumed that since she was not here, she was with you. As I will anytime I wish for privacy around either of you.' He walked around the tree she was leaning against, putting his tail to his mate and son, who were now apparently arguing, though quietly enough that Heather wasn't able to discern what they were saying.

'I want to trust you,' he began slowly. 'And I believe I _can, _in time. But not yet. You understand, right?'

Heather nodded. She understood that he needed time, a lot of it. She didn't get why he wanted this private from Einfari, but that would probably make sense at some point later on, once she had time to puzzle through his motives.

'Because, after hearing all you have done, I feel guilty,' Nóttleiðtogi admitted. 'My son does not have any reason to paint you in a positive light, and did not, but he told me you have killed in defence of Einfari. That is not something I think you could do lightly.'

Had she? Yes, she had stabbed a wounded Berserker on the ship after Nóttreiði's capture. It wasn't a small thing, but she hadn't thought much of it, far too wrapped up in the larger endeavor, freeing Nóttreiði and getting away from the disaster they had let him fly into. "I did, but…"

'But judging by your expression and scent, you had forgotten about it, or Nóttreiði lied to make you look good, which I find _highly _unlikely.' Nóttleiðtogi let out a slow, rumbling laugh, before growing solemn again. 'I am moving, but too slowly. Your presence still bothers me on a level I cannot ignore. But it will not always do so. I am going to make sure of that.'

"Thank you?" Heather offered doubtfully.

'Thank you,' Nóttleiðtogi countered. 'I know you did not go for my children, you went to kill Dagur. But you have mostly given that up, and I can only see one reason, even if you did not give it. Only one that makes sense.'

"I'm still going to kill him," Heather objected. "If I get an actually viable chance." She certainly wouldn't spare him if given the choice.

'And you will have my family's aid,' Nóttleiðtogi promised solemnly. 'I believe you picked us over revenge at some point on this trip, and I cannot stress highly enough how much that means. I know that choice and what it means.'

Heather couldn't believe he had gotten _that _from listening to Nóttreiði's version of events. She also wasn't sure if the choice she… _had _made, in a sense… was as important as he thought. But she certainly wasn't going to turn down his acceptance, even if it was based on something she didn't see as meriting it. The end result was the same.

Nóttleiðtogi wasn't finished, either. 'I should also tell you that Nóttreiði is not in a good place right now. He is confused and conflicted.'

"You say that like it's a good thing," Heather observed, too off-balance to stop herself.

'It is,' Nóttleiðtogi replied. 'He is standing on an edge between who he was and something else. Keep pulling him toward the rest of us. It's working.'

Heather wasn't sure if she liked that analogy, because Nóttleiðtogi had very deliberately failed to say what 'something else' might be. If he was sure his son was falling into the right ways of thinking, he would have said so. There was still much uncertainty and room for error.

But it was nice to be told she was doing _something_, especially when she couldn't see any of it for herself.

Or maybe she could. "The apology..?" she ventured, keeping what she said vague enough that Nóttleiðtogi would misinterpret it unless he already knew exactly what she was talking about.

'I can't say. Maybe you will be able to ask him at some point in the near future,' Nóttleiðtogi offered. 'When the time is right. I trust you to seize the chance when you see it.'

"I'll try." She didn't know what trying would mean, but it wasn't like she was promising to do anything new. Working on Nóttreiði and his father was part of her plans for the future already.

But it felt good to be told she was making progress.

* * *

The central cavern was not as occupied as it should be. Everyone available was attending the meeting, but that excluded most of the Eldurs, who were either on patrol or watching their youngest member, as well as Toothless, who was with the Svartur eggs, and several of the Myrkurs, who were also out, presumably watching the island and the waters immediately around it.

Maour wasn't entirely comfortable with that. He understood that the dozen or so dragons present were all that could be spared, but this was a big decision, and everyone should be allowed to have their say.

But speed trumped being inclusive in this case, and the leading mated couple from each family was present, meaning that the general opinions of each family would be heard. All of the riders were there too, though the Myrkur siblings and the twins had only just made it in time, obviously coming in from a long patrol, looking dead on their paws.

Wait, no, not all of the riders were there. "Where's Heather?" he called out, asking Einfari.

'Laid up in our cavern, watching through my eyes,' Einfari replied. 'She's having trouble standing, but she should be fine sooner or later.'

That was probably thanks to flying for weeks on end. Maour winced in sympathy. Heather was lucky the link was so useful for avoiding the pain most of the time. As she was, she probably preferred experiencing things like this through Einfari. At least that was an option.

"We should get this started," Fishlegs suggested. "Some of us have to go relieve the dragons on long patrol routes soon."

"Do me a favor and fill me in on what we're doing," Maour requested. "What's been going on here?"

'Simple,' Eldurfjall explained. 'Berserker ships have been combing the area, looking for Heather, we think. We watch the waters around the island in concentric circles, each one covering a different distance away from the center point-'

'We patrol in optimal routes,' Nóttleiðtogi interrupted, 'and make sure we know about any Berserker ship headed anywhere near us. We stay out of sight because 'disappearing' any of their ships will draw attention from the others.'

"But we didn't start doing that soon enough," Fishlegs added. "We've taken out three Berserker ships, and they know _something _is up with the general area around Mahelmetan. So there are a lot of Berserkers around."

'Blame the Myrkurs for those three ships,' Eldurský said. 'The rest of us were smart enough to stay out of sight, but once the Myrkurs got bored, they took risks and were seen, and that meant we had to wipe out the ship doing the seeing.'

To the Myrkurs credit, none of them objected or defended their actions. Myrkursprenging looked like he wanted to, but his mother's stern glare silenced him.

Maour supposed he couldn't have expected better. Overall, they had done well, but it wouldn't last if something didn't change. This was about when the Night Fury pack would usually pick up and leave, but they couldn't and wouldn't do that now.

Luckily, he had some good news for them. "You did well enough," he said loudly, drawing everyone's attention to himself. "Better than I did in some ways."

"It would be great to hear that Dagur gave up after talking to you," Fishlegs offered hopefully.

"Not even close." Maour cast a sidelong glance at Einfari, and she nodded significantly. He _hoped _that meant Heather was okay with him explaining Dagur's motives and thus connection to her, but it didn't really matter, as he had to explain whether or not she approved. "But that wasn't the first thing that happened after we left…"

* * *

Heather was glad she was only tapping into Einfari's senses of hearing and sight at the moment. Joy had curled up beside her in the cavern, and she liked the warm, purring mass beside her. A small comfort as she faced a feeling she hadn't felt in months.

Though the comfort was mostly counteracted by knowing Nóttreiði might flip out if he came into the cavern and saw her with Joy. Heather didn't know where he was at the moment; he wasn't in the central cavern, and he wasn't in the Nótt section of the caves, either.

But Skarpur had specifically told Joy to keep her company, so it wasn't like Nóttreiði would actually be able to get her in trouble. Einfari could be back in less than a minute if needed, anyway.

Heather was actually more concerned about the knowledge Maour was currently passing on to the rest of the pack. What did it say about her, that she was so worried about how the Night Furies would take her apparent connection to Dagur? Probably just that she cared what they thought, despite not knowing most of them personally. Not necessarily anything more than that.

'Don't worry,' Einfari murmured, correctly anticipating Heather's anxiety on the subject. 'The Myrkurs will respect you more, the Svarturs won't care, and the Eldurs are too careful and timid to do anything even if they don't like it.'

That wasn't as comforting as Einfari probably intended it. Heather would prefer to be accepted, not defended by the cowardice of any who might oppose her. Not that she had much of a choice. Besides, _she _didn't like it, so she understood why they wouldn't.

Then the main cavern burst into argument, and Heather was reminded that she wasn't just lying in a dark cavern with Joy. "What happened?"

Einfari shook her head, looking across the open space at the flat-topped stalagmite Maour was standing on. He was patiently waiting for the roared objections to die down.

"I broke no rules," he yelled once the noise had died down enough for anyone to have a chance of hearing him. "Everyone who was with me can vouch for that!"

'It's true!' Einfari roared, adding her voice to the tumult. 'So shut up and listen!'

'Effective, but offensive,' Nóttleiðtogi murmured to Einfari from his spot to her left. 'It is better to make people think you are on their side, or at least neutral, even if they are acting like frightened fledglings instead of rational adults.'

'But how they think of me at the moment doesn't matter, and by drawing their ire, I redirect it from Maour, who actually needs them to listen,' Einfari countered, gesturing with her tail at the Myrkurs, who were all sticking their tongues out at her. 'See?'

'That's a good point,' Skarpur admitted, joining the conversation from Nóttleiðtogi's other side, 'but only if Maour can take their attention back away from you.'

"Dagur is coming!" Maour declared. "Not directly here, but he's coming for his fleet, and Astrid is with him. We need to do _something_, and I have a solution."

'Tell us more about this solution,' Nóttleiðtogi called out. He already knew the basics of the alliance Maour had forged, so he had to be speaking up to help Maour along.

Heather was distracted from the discussion in the main cavern by a very heavy paw poking her uninjured side. "Yes?" she asked, coming back to her own senses for a moment.

'I want to put my head on your legs,' Joy requested. 'You're soft and I'm tired. Can I?'

Heather didn't feel like saying no, even if she suspected the extra weight would make her backside ache. She was only barely keeping her weight off of it in a way that didn't tire her other leg out as it was. But Joy…

Heather tried not to look at the wide-eyed, hopeful expression Joy had adopted. It was cute, but she knew that was the point. Even the youngest Nótt had her ways of getting what she wanted.

On the other hand, there was no reason to say no aside from a little discomfort, and she was going to be uncomfortable no matter what she did in any case. "Sure, but if I tell you to-"

Joy lunged forward and dropped her chin across Heather's lap, making herself comfortable. Her eyes closed almost immediately, and her ears drooped down in a way Heather had come to recognize as either sad or relaxed to the point of falling asleep.

"Never mind," Heather muttered, seeing all the telltale signs of just how quickly Joy wouldn't be able to hear her if she asked her to move. "I wonder what you've been doing to be tired already." It wasn't far past midnight, from what she could tell. Joy could only have been up for a few hours.

'Playing, running, flying,' Joy rumbled. 'Got up before the sun set…'

Or maybe she _had _been up for more than a few hours. There was probably something to that; Heather assumed Skarpur and Nóttleiðtogi were changing Joy's schedule to more easily fit the times one of them had to go out and fly one of the patrol routes she had heard mentioned a few minutes ago.

Heather put a hand on Joy's head, right between her ears, and turned her attention back to Einfari in the cavern. She needed to know what was going on.

'Welcome back,' Einfari said quietly. She was still watching Maour, who was talking directly to one of the Eldurs. 'You're lucky you can tune out for the boring parts we already know. Maour's just getting to the interesting parts now.'

"How did everyone take it?" Heather asked.

'We'll see in a second. Just watch.'

"So they don't know about this place, but they are coming to Mahelmetan, because it's the center of trade around here," Maour concluded. "We can fight this whole war without anyone, enemy or ally, knowing of our home. It won't even be that hard."

'Assuming we agree to this,' Eldurfjall clarified. 'You did not commit the pack to anything yet, correct?'

"Correct," Maour agreed. "Beyond involving Toothless and myself, no commitment has been made. I have a copy of the agreement if you want to look over it-"

"I do!" Fishlegs volunteered. "Later, though, since you've covered all the important details."

'But we should be allowed to voice our opinions and then vote on it,' Nóttleiðtogi said sternly. 'Can we count Maour's actions as representing the Svarturs?'

'No,' Svarturskuggi replied evenly. 'He made that clear in only committing himself and his brother. But we support this whole-heartedly. Enough caution has been taken to make it worth the little risk that remains.'

Heather was momentarily surprised Maour's family didn't immediately support him. What made it even more contradictory was that they approved. Was there some sort of technical point they were trying to make, saying that Maour didn't speak for them before approving anyway? She would have to ask someone later.

'The Eldurs want to hear what the Nótts have to say about it,' Eldurský barked. 'I don't like it, personally, but that's just me.'

'What the Nótts think?' Skarpur repeated. She looked over at her mate, and then Einfari.

Heather tried to catch a glimpse of Maour out of the corner of Einfari's eye. She would bet he was at least a little worried right now. Luckily for him, the Nótts already had plenty of time to discuss this, because she and Einfari had already told them about the alliance and what it meant. So she knew the answer already.

'Simple,' Skarpur continued. 'The necessary precautions have been taken. Even if these humans are not safe for us to interact with long-term, we can use them to rid ourselves of a definite enemy now, and take the rest as it comes. They are all weaker than the current foe, even together. As long as we are the force that tips the balance in their favor, them turning on us is still better than the alternative of not using them, because only _together _is our combined strength greater than the current enemy.'

All well reasoned out, but it must have come as a surprise to the other families, who all probably expected the cautious and cynical Nótts to disapprove of an alliance with humans.

Heather couldn't let herself feel too superior, though. She had expected it to be a tough sell with Skarpur and Nóttleiðtogi, meaning she was guilty of making the same mistake. Assuming the Nótts would let their caution blind them to the tactical advantages of _anything _was a bad idea.

'If the Nótts are in, so are we!' Myrkurhryðjuverk announced. 'But don't let the humans get all of the action when it comes to fighting.'

'The Eldurs…' Eldurfjall shook his head. 'Honestly, we would not support this if we saw a better way. It is almost inevitable that something will go wrong. But as there is nothing better available, we will not argue against it.'

'Are they just scared of change?' Einfari asked quietly.

'More of the consequences, I think,' Nóttleiðtogi replied. 'They know much of the past. More than enough to have a good idea of just how badly this could go wrong. But I think it is safe to guess that they know of nothing in the past that can say how this could go _right_. So it scares them.'

"So everyone is in agreement?" Maour asked hopefully. "The 'Isle of Night' applies to all of us, not just me and Toothless?"

"Hey, wait a minute!" one of the twins objected. "Are you setting yourself up as Chief, Maour?"

"What?" Maour said, sounding surprised. "No. Why would I want to lead anything?"

"Hey, it was a fair question," the other twin replied. "I mean, you _are _asking us to join your 'Isle of Night,' the one _you _founded, and the one _you _speak for in the outside world. Everyone is going to think you're in charge unless you can point to somebody and say 'I follow his orders.'"

Heather was forced to reevaluate her assessment of the twins, hearing that. They hadn't struck her as smart enough to pick up on that, but it seemed she was wrong.

"I don't want to be in charge," Maour asserted, sounding as if he was serious about it. "And I don't want to be the only one speaking for us, either. Besides, that wouldn't work. I was thinking we could send some other riders out in a few weeks, to accompany the ships our allies bring over."

That was new; Heather knew nothing about such a plan. Maour might be just now coming up with it.

'Yes,' Skarpur called out, latching onto the idea immediately. 'Four human packs, correct? And they will not be traveling together. Send a rider and dragon to each, to guide them safely around our island on the way to Mahelmetan.'

'That sounds like a good way to never see our children again,' Eldurfjall objected. 'One pair, alone among supposed allies who will have nothing stopping them from deciding they want our dragon or human dead?'

'We cannot very well send more,' Svarturkló growled. 'Our patrols will be short-winged as it is with four gone. Any more than that and it will become impossible to protect this place adequately.'

'Svarturkló, you are speaking with your mind addled by your eggs,' Myrkurhryðjuverk said dismissively. 'We can afford to send a few more.'

Heather very distinctly heard Skarpur's truly angry growl. She didn't need to be told to understand that dismissing Svarturkló purely on account of the eggs she had recently laid was offensive. It made total sense.

'That was out of line,' Svarturskuggi snarled, flaring his wings as if threatening to fly over to the Myrkur ledge. 'And my mate is totally right. As is, we are barely able to all get enough rest between flights. Sending more dragons than we have just gotten back will make it even harder. Too many, and we won't have enough bodies to cover all the area we must.'

'Just the four with their riders, then,' Eldurfjall interjected. 'But we must discuss safety, precautions, and how the humans are likely to react, along with why we would need to send anyone to them anyway.'

Heather felt one of Joy's ears flick her hand, and slowly pulled back to her own sight and hearing. Sometimes dragons moved in their sleep, but she had noticed that flicking ears usually meant something had been heard…

Nóttreiði. He had stuck his head in, looking in on her and Joy. His eyes narrowed, but when he spoke, it was with no obvious hatred. 'Where is everyone?'

Heather responded without thinking it through. "In the main cavern."

Nóttreiði nodded and left.

"Is that it?" Heather whispered to herself. She was… surprised, to say the least. No snarling about getting away from his sister? His _sleeping, defenceless _sister?

There were explanations, of course. Maybe Skarpur or Nóttleiðtogi had ordered him to leave her alone. Maybe he was used to her being around Joy, given that she, Joy, and Einfari usually shared a side cavern. Maybe he didn't think her dangerous with her injury.

There was no way to know. Heather was just glad he hadn't forced her to move. Her eyelids were growing heavy, and Joy's weight on her lap didn't hurt at all. There was nothing to do, and it wasn't likely Heather could go anywhere without waking Joy. The pack would be debating the idea of sending riders to ships for hours, probably… and she wouldn't be one of them. Four were needed, and she made five. There was no way they would send her.

That was good. She needed the time. Time to rest, time to recover, and time to improve herself in every way possible. She and Einfari had come up with a list of skills one or both of them should work on sharpening, and every advantage would be needed. The war had not yet begun, and Heather planned to be as ready as she could possibly be.


	29. Chapter 29

Maour stuck a stick in the ground, and proceeded to lay a string on the ground between it and a small rock, staring with a look of intense concentration. Other sticks, rocks, and lines of string lay around him in other such setups, and he sat at the center.

He knew very well that anyone who happened across him would have absolutely no idea what he was doing. How any such person would respond to the oddness varied depending on who they were. An Eldur would probably ask questions. A Myrkur would shrug it off and not care.

'You do not usually do your creating here, at our meeting place. What is this, and why do you want to show it to me?'

… And a Nótt would see through it all right away, whether or not they understood the specifics. Maour looked up, glad he hadn't jumped to his feet in surprise, to see Nóttleiðtogi only a few feet away, looking down at the admittedly haphazard mess of string, sticks, and rocks.

"How are you doing, Togi?" he asked politely. "It has been a while."

'Very well, now that my children are back. And I have made progress, as insane as that sounds, given that both you and Heather have been absent,' Nóttleiðtogi said, lying on his stomach in front of the clutter surrounding Maour, so as to get a closer look. 'Am I meant to puzzle this out myself?'

"No, but I'd love to hear you try," Maour said challengingly. "And what do you mean by progress?" It was odd to have two different conversations at once, but it was not as if either was particularly complicated, so he didn't mind.

'I let Heather lean on my wing,' Nóttleiðtogi said absently, staring intently at the string Maour had just set up. 'She was in pain and needed a support, and I just acted without thinking. I'm not sure yet if I could make myself do it again, so please do not make a big deal about it. Are these meant to come together to make something, or are they abstract representations of an idea?'

Maour smiled widely. "That's great!" he said enthusiastically, entirely ignoring Nóttleiðtogi's request. If the Nótt didn't want to be praised, he should not have brought it up at all. "Really great."

'Is there a difference between the sticks and the rocks?' Nóttleiðtogi persisted. 'Or are they the same?'

"You're really going to try and distract me like that?" Maour asked, amused. "Come on, I'm not that easy to fool."

'No, I am not distracting you. It is just that there is nothing more to say.' Nóttleiðtogi looked uncomfortable. 'I cannot be proud of it.'

"Why not?" Maour didn't understand where Nóttleiðtogi was getting that from; he had always stressed that Nóttleiðtogi _should _be proud of progress. The alternative was being depressed because it was taking so long.

'Because I do not know _why _I could do it so easily,' Nóttleiðtogi snarled, pawing at one of the rocks on the outskirts of Maour's setup. 'I do not know why at all. I can guess, but that does not help.'

"Well, let's look at it logically," Maour suggested. "Have you been doing anything to try and improve while we were gone?" Fishlegs, Ruffnut and Tuffnut had been around, and even if he couldn't imagine Nóttleiðtogi going to any of them for help, that did not mean it couldn't happen.

'If I had tried, I would not be unable to say why,' Nóttleiðtogi grumbled crossly. 'I did nothing of the sort. Truthfully, I thought more of my son and daughter than any human. I forgot Heather was with them sometimes. I would _expect _to have lost some of my tolerance for her after so long. It does not make sense.'

Now Maour understood. He stepped out from his arrangement of sticks and string, and carefully held out a hand for Nóttleiðtogi.

Nóttleiðtogi, knowing what he was meant to do, leaned in with no hesitation, even closing his eyes once his forehead met Maour's palm. 'I do not like good things that I do not understand. I did not earn it, and it might go away.'

"It sounds to me like you _did_ earn it," Maour countered, putting as much confidence into his voice as he could muster. "Just because you didn't have to fight tooth and claw for this doesn't mean you don't deserve it. Just try and keep yourself relaxed around her. If you can't then we're no worse off. If you can, then great."

'I think maybe it is because she is injured,' he growled to himself. 'Or maybe because she did good for my children. Or maybe because I am used to the idea of her, and because I am relieved my children came back mostly unharmed. Or maybe I am going crazy. Or… I do not understand!'

"It'll make sense someday," Maour declared. "You were right in the beginning. You need to stop thinking about it." Nóttleiðtogi looked like he was close to slipping into a bout of paranoia about his own issues, which couldn't be good. A distraction was exactly what he needed.

"Fine. So, abstract or literal?" Nóttleiðtogi asked, pulling away to walk around the circle of sticks, string, and rocks. 'I see four rocks and many sticks. Many white vines, but most do not seem to be in use. Five are out right now.'

"Five?" Maour asked, looking back over the arrangement. "Wait, that's wrong. There should be six." He had almost forgotten about that.

Nóttleiðtogi silently watched as Maour looped a string between the two sticks in the center. With a smug purr, he said, 'Those two sticks must be Skuggi and Cloey.'

Maour's jaw dropped in surprise. He was constructing an extremely vague and unintuitive model, and dragons didn't work with charts or diagrams. There was no way Nóttleiðtogi could have figured it out so easily.

"How did you…" he started to ask, completely at a loss for words.

'Numbers,' Nóttleiðtogi replied sagely. 'Five small rocks, five humans on our island. About as many sticks as dragons, clustered into four groups for the four families. six strands of string, five between stick and rock - dragon and human - and one between two sticks - Skuggi and Cloey. As for the four large rocks…' he drifted off in thought.

Maour shot him a wide grin. "Considering that such diagramming would be strange and foreign to a dragon, that really is impressive. And the four large rocks are the ships our four allies will be sending to help fight off Dagur." He had considered bringing another rock for Dagur's ship, but upon thinking about it had realized that Dagur didn't actually matter at the moment.

'The real question is why you need this,' Nóttleiðtogi continued, pawing at one of the sticks as he spoke. 'Is there a problem to solve? One you cannot handle yourself? I find that unlikely.'

"I just wanted a more… tactical… opinion." He had considered going to the Eldurs, but suspected he knew what their answer would be, and didn't feel like wasting the time. Nóttleiðtogi was more likely to take everything into account, not just the obvious factors.

'Starting where?'

"Four allies," Maour explained, pointing at the larger rocks. "The pack wants to send envoys to each, with several different purposes I don't think I need to explain." Watching over their allies, scouting a little for them, directing them to Mahelmetan, making sure they don't accidentally detour to the Isle of Night on the way there, and providing a physical proof that the Isle of Night kept its agreements.

'And it has been decided that since you brought two dragons back, we can send two reliable dragons with riders back out, plus the Myrkurs with riders, giving us our eight envoys. This has all been solved.'

"It _was_ solved," Maour groaned. "Then Cloey told me that Toothless and I _have _to be here in about a month." That was when the eggs were going to hatch. "Can Heather be one of those envoys?"

'No,' Nóttleiðtogi replied without hesitation. 'She is healing. And I did not think you would send someone to suffer for your convenience.'

"I wouldn't," Maour said vehemently. "And I didn't think you would say yes. But that leaves us a problem with no solution… if you only look at the obvious options."

'But you see other factors,' Nóttleiðtogi rumbled knowingly, now looking truly interested. 'What have you considered?'

"I don't see other factors, actually," Maour admitted. "That's why I brought this here. I don't know what the best answer is, or if there _is _an answer that keeps both me and Heather here." There didn't seem to be one, but the nagging feeling in the back of his head told him he was missing something, something Toothless didn't see either, something an Eldur probably wouldn't notice. He needed someone who thought of everything.

'Think outside the problem,' Nóttleiðtogi advised. 'The envoys. What do they _have _to be capable of? I assume the standard is not all that high if we were planning to send Myrkurs to do diplomatic work.'

"Actually, the twins will be great for this," Maour explained. "They know how to talk to Vikings." He had thought to send Tuffnut to the Meatheads and Ruffnut to the Bog Burglars; they would both fit in well enough.

'So talking to humans, therefore requiring that each envoy involve one human,' Nóttleiðtogi hummed. 'Or so I assume. Is that true?'

"Probably." The only other option he could see was sending a dragon on their own, and that was far too tempting; he didn't trust some of their new allies that far, setting aside the total lack of communication on the dragon's side of things.

'Each envoy also requires one dragon, for safety and to prove our existence and willingness to cooperate,' Nóttleiðtogi continued. 'Four dragons, then. There is no problem with sending the human twins, any Myrkur, any one Eldur dragon aside from the parents tending their hatchling, and the human Eldur.'

"Sounds about right, but we only need to send Boom and Blast of the Myrkurs."

'I am not yet listing who we will send,' Nóttleiðtogi countered. 'Only those who have no issues going.' He pawed at the groupings of sticks near the center. 'I do not intend to send my son no matter what. This is not a mission for him. Heather is injured. Einfari, on the other paw, is hypothetically available, as is your sister. You and your brother need to be here.'

"Pretty much." They had to send their envoys, whoever they ended up being, soon, so as to catch their various allies before they set sail. It would be much easier to find fleets docked in a known place than fleets sailing in a general direction, at an unknown speed, and taking an unknown route there.

'Needed here…' Nóttleiðtogi mused, pulling the five small rocks that represented riders over to the larger ones with his paw. 'But we need four humans for communication. You or Heather must go.'

Maour sighed, discouraged. That was the conclusion he had known the Eldurs would come to if he had posed the problem to them. Cloey's wishes, and his own, weren't important in the face of something like this. He had hoped-

'She wants you there to be introduced to the hatchling so that it will trust you implicitly,' Nóttleiðtogi said abruptly. 'And to see the hatching itself. Both of those are reasons, yes?'

"I think that's the idea," Maour agreed.

'Hatchlings are kept away from others outside the family for so long because they will trust anyone they meet for the first few _years_, not minutes,' Nóttleiðtogi said smugly. 'You need not be here physically at the moment of hatching. And you can watch through your brother's eyes, correct?'

"Well, yes, but…" Maour trailed off, seeing what Nóttleiðtogi intended. "Toothless stays, and I go on someone else?" Somehow, that had never occurred to him. He felt like there was a problem with the idea, but couldn't see what that might be.

'Not only someone else, a Myrkur,' Nóttleiðtogi rumbled. 'You hear all dragons, all dragons hear you. There is no real benefit from sending both ends of a link so long as the human _is _linked.'

Maour smiled, looking at the link between the little rock out by Nóttleiðtogi and the stick near the center. "I think that's a good compromise," he declared happily. Sure, it wasn't perfect; he had really wanted to be there for the actual hatching, but it was far better than not being able to see it at all!

'Oh, I am not done,' Nóttleiðtogi purred, gesturing at the rocks he had pulled over. 'What else do you see here?'

Maour stared at the four strings trailing off of the rocks. They were all tethered to the sticks in the center, not just his, drawing a line between each of the four big rocks and the center. In real-life terms, the equivalent would be… "You want to send everyone with a different dragon?" One end of the link here on the island, and one on the fleet.

'Yes. Let us have a connection to all four fleets. It makes perfect sense.' Nóttleiðtogi eyed the pile of loose string. 'And I think the dragons going should also link with dragons here. Every envoy will have a connection to home. We will know the instant anything happens to any of them.'

Maour held up his hands as if to stop Nóttleiðtogi. "Hey, wait a second," he protested. "I don't want the links to be used like that."

Nóttleiðtogi paused for a moment, clearly considering that. 'For war, for information, and for safety. You do not want to make everyone safer?'

"Well, no, I do," Maour admitted. "But it seems to me that they'll already be safe enough. Any threat to the dragon will be noticed by the human, who has a link home already. We'd be making new links for little reason, and I don't want them used for nothing. They're not to be taken lightly."

'You feel strongly about this… and I agree,' Nóttleiðtogi declared, pacing around the rocks and string to face Maour, and warbling apologetically. 'I do not want it misused, and I know first-paw that it is not to be taken lightly.'

"You do?"

Nóttleiðtogi laughed quietly, looking over at the mountain looming nearby. 'Skarpur and I tried it once your parents told us that they had linked. We could not stand it.'

"Really?" Maour asked in bewilderment.

Nóttleiðtogi shrugged his wings and gave a wry purr. 'We started off with the agreement to keep the link for a week. We hardly lasted three days for how maddening it was.'

"But why?" Maour asked curiously. He would have expected them to like the link, if only for the tactical advantage. Always being able to know that one's mate was safe sounded like something Nóttleiðtogi would want for himself.

'We are both good at reading each other. It is second nature to try and interpret every movement, sound, turn of phrase, and so on, for the true intent and possible hidden motivations,' Nóttleiðtogi explained wryly. 'But with the link, we had at our paws a way to cheat at any time, a way to _feel _every movement and sensation the other did, to _see _the other's actions from their view… It was too much information, and too much of a temptation. As soon as we understood how much it could convey, we were constantly slipping into each other's minds, just to get an extra hint.'

"You can't actually read her mind, right?" Maour asked nervously. It sounded a lot like Nóttleiðtogi _could, _and that was unnerving to say the least.

'No, but it felt like I could. Only, I was interpreting incorrectly, reading into things that she truly did not intend, feeling every wayward twitch as some hidden message...' Nóttleiðtogi closed his eyes, as if remembering the sensation. 'And that was what it was like when she was just _talking_, sitting still and speaking. I was doubting everything I did the first day, then I almost went insane the second day, especially after… a certain activity we would both participate in...'

"Too much information," Maour complained, trying not to think about that. He could imagine how a constant overload of information to interpret might be maddening.

Nóttleiðtogi shrugged a wing. 'When I woke up the third day, I was ready to claw my eyes out, so I knocked myself out instead to break the link. I don't think Nótts can link with other dragons. We read too much into everything.'

"So how do you explain Heather and Einfari?"

'Simple,' Nóttleiðtogi purred. 'Einfari cannot read Heather because she is human. I do not think it will ever become a problem for them.'

"Probably not." Maour added that to his mental list of things to keep an eye on, even if Nóttleiðtogi would also be watching for it. He considered almost everything pertaining to the ability of linking and the effects to be his concern, given that he, Toothless and Cloey introduced it to the pack.

'So we will not try and encourage any new links for this,' Nóttleiðtogi continued, bringing them back to the reason they were talking about people linking in the first place. 'By extension, we know that Eldurberg, Myrkursprenging, Myrkursprengja, and Svarturkappi must remain here. Einfari, Svarturvon, and the various Mykurs are all available to serve as their temporary replacements.'

'Not Von,' Maour quickly corrected him. 'She'll never be allowed to go, if she would even want to.' Cloey wanted them all present, and wasn't going to be totally happy with the compromise as it was; there was no way she was letting Von go too. That defeated the whole point of not sending Toothless.

'We still have enough Myrkurs to choose from, not to mention my daughter,' Nóttleiðtogi replied thoughtfully. 'Heather is stuck on the ground, but I believe I can convince Einfari to want to go. I'll check with the Myrkurs and arrange for them to cover the other three riders.'

Maour nodded in agreement. "I guess that works." There would be more debate, arguments, and some convincing to be done, but the best plan had been determined, so the hardest part was done. He wasn't looking forward to leaving again, especially given the reason and the destination, but they _were _at war. He didn't have to enjoy it if it was the right thing to do.

* * *

'You forgot something,' Toothless said calmly.

"What?" Maour asked. He had just finished explaining Nóttleiðtogi's solution to their problems to his brother. They were flying above the island at the moment, gliding easily in the wind.

Toothless huffed in annoyance. 'Do not take it the wrong way. I like this plan, and you are giving up more than me.'

"What are you…" Maour trailed off as it slowly occurred to him, the thing he had not been able to remember while talking to Nóttleiðtogi. "Your tail."

'I can go a few months without flying,' Toothless said solemnly. 'I really can. And if I really need to fly, Heather will be here, and she seems bright enough to learn the basics.'

"Well…" Maour didn't have any real objections to that, aside from the vague feeling that it was his responsibility to keep Toothless in the air, and nobody else's. "I don't want to do it now."

'Too bad.' Toothless snorted in dry amusement, glancing back at Maour. 'It's _fine. _I'll live. If it makes you feel better, I'll go to Heather as soon as she is healed enough to help me.'

"I get that, but…" Maour only rarely had reason to _really _think about his brother's tailfin nowadays; he had long since optimized his end of flight as far as he could manage in terms of durability and flexibility.

And the final, most important possible improvement? He had no idea how to do it. A crude substitute to a tailfin could be made, one that might mirror Toothless's good fin, but that was not good enough, and he had never come up with any solution that would grant true flight. He was waiting for inspiration that might never come, as that was the only way he would ever figure it out.

'No buts,' Toothless objected after a long silence. 'It's a good plan, and I think Cloey and Shadow will agree to it. They get more help, I get to be here when the eggs hatch, you get to see, _and _you get to go instead of forcing Heather to take your place. All we are giving up is you physically being here, and me flying for a short time.'

"If I don't tell them then you will," Maour realized. "I'm not getting out of this, am I?"

'Nope,' Toothless confirmed with a smug purr.

"You're the one who's paying the price for this great plan, you know."

'Which means you don't get to feel guilty,' Toothless immediately replied. 'It will be harder on me to not have you around for months, but you're just a thought away, so even that is fine.'

"Okay, okay," Maour announced, forcing himself to let go of his unease and lingering guilt. "You've convinced me. But do you know what we need to do now?"

Maour pressed himself against the saddle as Toothless answered his question with a sudden diving corkscrew at terminal speed. If they weren't going to be flying together for a few months, they were going to use the little time they had left right now.

* * *

"You all know why you're here!" Maour called out, walking across the flat mountain top, being sure to remain far from the edges. Toothless was walking right beside him, but it was windy and he didn't want to risk falling off all the same.

There was a rumble of assent from the four dragons and three humans haphazardly scattered around the mountaintop.

"Yeah, yeah," Ruffnut yawned. "Why did we have to do this during the day?"

Tuffnut's forehead nodded, and he leaned forward, apparently almost asleep on his feet. Fishlegs, who was sitting down on the rocks, didn't say anything.

Maour looked over at Toothless, who shrugged his wings. They had both expected everyone to be a little more enthusiastic.

Still, it needed to be done, whether or not anyone wanted to do it. "Come on, this is important," Maour chided. "You all know that we're heading out on a long trip, and you know why Berg, Boom, Blast, and Toothless aren't going. We need to get used to how our new partners fly, just in case."

'In case of what?' Myrkurvængur asked curiously. 'Fighting? Danger?'

"If you're unlucky, yes," Maour admitted. "But that shouldn't happen." He would have preferred to put the youngest Myrkur with Fishlegs to hopefully counter his eagerness to get into trouble, but it was pretty much a given that whichever dragon was strongest would have to take Fishlegs, and that was probably going to be Myrkurheili.

'Let's just get this done,' Einfari rumbled disagreeably as she eyed the twins suspiciously. 'Who is carrying who?'

Maour shrugged his shoulders. "It's not just carrying, so I'll let you all work that out once everyone has taken everyone up at least once." He needed to see who could carry Fishlegs and who would tolerate the twins without amplifying their craziness. After that, he'd go with whoever was left.

None of this was comfortable or particularly fun; Maour was pretty sure the other riders felt just as unhappy as he did to have to leave their bonds behind for months on end, even if they were still going to be connected via the link.

'Einfari take Fishlegs, Myrkurvængur take Maour, Myrkurheili take Ruffnut, Myrkurljós take Tuffnut!' Toothless barked after a long moment of hesitation. 'Go! Fly around above the mountain and do not come down until I roar! Don't do anything fancy, and those of you not used to the saddles, fly slowly!'

"Thanks," Maour muttered to Toothless. "This is awkward."

'I don't see why, it's not like this means anything,' Toothless said confidently. 'Now get moving before I throw you onto Myrkurvængur,' he finished with a taunting warble.

"I'm going, I'm going," Maour laughed. "Ready, Myrkurvængur?"

The youngest Myrkur bounded over to Maour and knocked him into the saddle with his tail, eliciting a warning growl from Toothless. Maour clambered on and got himself settled, and they were off.

Riding with Myrkurvængur wasn't bad at all; Maour was at home in any saddle after years of riding Toothless and occasionally the other Svarturs, when the need arose. The same could be said for the other riders; they had plenty of experience.

The real issue, he could see right away, was going to be with the dragons. Einfari was the only one who actually had a rider, and she was relatively new at it. The other three had only flown in saddles once before, back when Maour made one for everyone who was interested, and that was years ago.

Four Night Furies flew in lazy circles in the noon sky, high above the mountain. A few minutes passed without incident. Then, Einfari swooped over to fly by Myrkurvængur.

'Tell him,' Einfari hissed angrily at Fishlegs, whose face was red.

"Why me?" Fishlegs asked timidly.

"Because," Einfari growled.

'Tell him what?' Myrkurvængur asked innocently.

"Fishlegs?" Maour hadn't seen anything happen, but he hadn't been paying them much attention, assuming that if there was trouble to be had, it wouldn't come from the only non-Myrkurs in the sky aside from himself.

"It just slipped out!" Fishlegs exclaimed in embarrassment. "I had a big dinner! Besides, I didn't think you would notice. It's not _my _fault you doubled back a second later."

Maour tried not to grin, and almost succeeded. Myrkurvængur's high-pitched squeals of laughter were far less subtle, and Einfari looked as if she wanted to throw Fishlegs from the saddle.

"Look, I'm sure it was an accident, and won't happen again," Maour offered helpfully. "Can you carry him without strain, Einfari?"

'Apparently not,' Einfari snarled. 'He strains my patience and my sense of smell. I want him off.'

"Look, this is why we're trying this now," Maour said a little more sternly. "And you're overreacting."

'Ugh,' Einfari groaned. 'I'm really not. This was never a problem with Heather.'

"Hey, I'm sorry!" Fishlegs exclaimed, growing angry. "It's not like dragons don't-"

"Okay, let me stop you there!" Maour interrupted, seeing absolutely no good end to where the argument had been heading. "Go down and dismount, you two. It's almost-"

'Time's up!' Toothless said mentally, as a faint roar could be heard from the mountain top.

Einfari dove for the mountain the moment she heard the roar. The other Myrkurs all headed down at a slightly less frantic pace.

'Okay,' Toothless called out once they were all down out of the air. 'Next rotation.'

Maour hoped, as he waited for Toothless to say how they were pairing up next, that Fishlegs' stomach issues were going to be their biggest problem in assigning riders to dragons once this was over with.

* * *

"So?" Myrkurvængur asked hopefully, landing with Tuffnut on his back. "Did we do great?"  
"So-so," Tuffnut sighed. "Blast is faster."

Myrkurvængur squeaked in indignation, sounding much more like a fledgling than he probably intended to.

'I think I know who is going with who,' Toothless announced, garnering everyone's attention, including Maour.

"Weren't we both going to discuss it?" Maour asked tentatively.

'Yes, but I realized you would have a preference,' Toothless said innocently. 'You won't be totally fair. I will.'

Myrkurheili and Myrkurljós nodded in agreement. Einfari snarled angrily, for some reason.

"Okay, that's fine," Maour conceded. He had already figured out who he would be with; Myrkurvængur was barely more than a fledgling in mentality, even if he was years past that stage physically. Pairing him with anyone else wouldn't work. Maour was interested in seeing which twin Toothless put with Einfari, though. He would have chosen Ruffnut and sent them to the Bog Burglars.

'Fishlegs,' Toothless announced, 'you're going with Myrkurheili.'

Fishlegs looked over at Myrkurheili and shrugged. "Okay."

'You like stories, right?' Myrkurheili asked. 'I've got plenty. Sounds like a good trip to me, and a workout too.'

Maour smiled to himself; he had that matchup decided from the start. Myrkurheili was the closest thing to an intellectual the Myrkur family had to offer, so it made perfect sense, not to mention the strongest of the Night Furies present.

'Tuffnut, you will be going with Myrkurljós,' Toothless continued.

'Sounds fine to me,' Myrkurljós rumbled.

"I'm just glad I get to go with someone fun," Tuffnut gloated. "Sis, you're in for a boring trip."

Maour wasn't surprised by that pairing, either. Ruffnut and Einfari together was probably the most problematic duo, and that was unavoidable. Toothless had picked exactly as he would-

'Ruffnut, you get to go with Myrkurvængur,' Toothless continued. 'Einfari, you're with Maour.'

Einfari purred happily, walking right over to Maour. 'Good.'

Maour smiled back at her, too confused to say anything. What was Toothless thinking, putting Myrkurvængur and Ruffnut together?

"Well…" Maour said, trying to put that aside for the moment, "we're planning to leave in two days. We'll meet up here, at sundown. You can all go now."

The Myrkurs immediately flew away, Ruffnut and Tuffnut hitching rides on the Night Furies they had been paired with, while Berg flew in from somewhere to pick up Fishlegs.

Once it was just Toothless, Maour, and Einfari, Einfari purred loudly, eyeing Toothless. 'I owe you one,' she said vehemently.

'It was the obvious choice if we wanted everyone to get along,' Toothless replied. 'The twins were never an option for you, and Fishlegs-'

'Don't speak of it. My saddle still smells,' Einfari griped, shaking her head as if to drive the smell from her nostrils. 'He might not have been _too _bad, but he was pretty heavy, and I know I'd rather have Maour.'

"Bud, you did kind of put Ruffnut with Myrkurvængur to get me and Einfari together," Maour objected. "Do you think that's a good idea?"

'Myrkurhryðjuverk keeps a close eye on her children, and Boom is going to be around often enough that they'll have to check in,' Toothless said confidently. 'And the Bog Burglars are our least dangerous allies.'

'I presume Maour and I will be going to the most dangerous?' Einfari asked.

"Definitely. I can handle the Meatheads, but if anyone is going to cause trouble, it will be them." Mogadon was stubborn and quick to take offense. Maour didn't know much of Sigvard or Aldir, but neither seemed nearly as temperamental. He had originally considered sending Tuffnut to them, but with the added complication of new dragon-rider pairings, he wasn't confident enough to risk that.

'And I can watch his back for you,' Einfari said to Toothless. 'Do not worry.'

'No, I'll worry no matter what,' Toothless said cheerfully. 'And I expect to spend a lot of time sitting around with the eggs, so I'll be right there with you!'

"Reminds me of back on Berk," Maour remarked. "You sitting around, me going into tense situations."

'Just like old times. Not that those old times were very good,' Toothless grumbled. 'Einfari, are you okay with me going to Heather if I cannot stand being grounded?'

'What…' Einfari trailed off, looking from Toothless's tail to Maour, and then back again. 'I see. Once she is healed, if she agrees, and if you are careful.'

'Of course,' Toothless agreed. 'You take care of mine, and I'll keep yours safe.'

"Hey," Maour protested. "I'm not _yours_." He wasn't actually all that bothered by it, but felt he should protest on principle.

'_My _brother, my _risk-taking _brother,' Toothless said vehemently. 'Who will not do anything particularly stupid and dangerous when I am not looking. Right?' He nudged Maour's side, knocking him slightly off-balance.

"Of course not, Toothless. I'd make sure you're watching when I stick my neck out." Maour grinned at his brother. "So no risk-taking on this trip. Got it."

'What about you, Einfari?' Toothless asked. 'Got anything to make Heather promise? Or is it the other way around?'

Einfari shuffled her paws guiltily. 'Maybe… But she does not know I am going yet. Father is telling her right now. I hope she does not take it too badly. It was not my idea, after all.'

* * *

Heather had known something was up the moment Nóttleiðtogi had requested she not look in on Einfari for the night, let alone when Einfari slunk away in the middle of the day without a word of explanation. It was extremely obvious that Einfari and Nóttleiðtogi were plotting something she couldn't know about, yet it didn't even bother her that much. They were Nótts; she would be more surprised if they did not keep more secrets than her.

What did worry her, on the other hand, was Nóttleiðtogi bringing everyone but Einfari together in the cavern. What, she wondered, had Einfari done? It felt odd to be excluding only her.

'You are comfortable like this?' Skarpur asked tentatively, lifting her wing up a little.

"Yes, I am," Heather said gratefully. Skarpur was letting her lean back against her side. Her injury was slowly healing, but any sort of support was better than sitting on the stone floor of the cavern unaided. Having Nótthljóður by her side to provide a purring armrest made it even better.

Of course, it could not be perfect. Not when Nóttreiði was around. His grey eyes stared in her general direction every time Skarpur and Nótthljóður did not seem to be looking. He was not glaring, which she supposed was some small improvement, but having his eyes on her every so often kept her from fully relaxing.

Nóttleiðtogi stood between Heather's group and Nóttreiði, one eye on either side. He seemed to be waiting for something.

'If we are all going to sit here, at least come sit by your mate,' Skarpur suggested, tilting her head in the direction of her other side. 'Or do you have something to tell us all first?' Her tone suggested she knew what he meant to say.

'Yes, I do,' Nóttleiðtogi replied seriously. 'I recently spoke to Maour, and then to the other families. It has been decided which riders and dragons we are sending to escort our new allies to this part of the world.'

'Not Myrkurs, they'll give everything away in an instant,' Nóttreiði snarled from his place in the far corner of the cavern.

'That will be hard to do with a language barrier,' Skarpur observed with a laughing hum. 'And no Myrkur has the patience to act out what they mean to say.'

'All have been told exactly what not to say, and what not to admit to,' Nóttleiðtogi said seriously. 'That is not the important part of this. The important part is that I am sending one of us along to ensure we have a chance to learn as much about them as possible. It is an opportunity that cannot be missed.'

Nóttreiði's eyes flicked from his father, to his little sister, to his mother, and then finally to Heather. They narrowed suspiciously. 'Alone?'

'She is perfectly capable of defending herself, knows the situation better than most of those going, and will be checking in with us often enough through Heather.'

Heather knew who they were talking about; it was obvious enough. Her heart sank a little at the idea that Einfari was going without her, and far more at the fact that her friend hadn't told her.

'I told her not to say anything until I had told everyone,' Nóttleiðtogi said, looking directly at Heather. 'You will understand why in a moment.'

'Why alone?' Nóttreiði demanded. 'I am going-'

'Nowhere,' Skarpur growled. 'We have other duties for you. The pack cannot lose any more able-bodied, trustworthy dragons to this trip.'

'I wanted this kept secret from Heather,' Nóttleiðtogi continued, forcing the conversation back to where he wanted by ignoring the byplay, 'to prove a point to you, Nóttreiði. Einfari obeys me and her mother, whether or not she likes the order. Do you?'

Heather could see a setup coming with that, but she couldn't see where it might lead, and didn't particularly like that Nóttleiðtogi had made Einfari keep something from her to use here.

'I do,' Nóttreiði growled reluctantly, sounding like he saw the trap coming too. 'So what do you want of me that I would prefer not to do?'

'When I told Einfari I wanted her to go, one of the issues she raised was that she would not be here for Heather, and that they had planned to train many useful skills for the upcoming war,' Nóttleiðtogi explained. 'One of us here will always be occupied with Joy, and another out scouting most of the time. That leaves one of us who can accompany Heather, helping her where needed, and once she has healed, assisting her in training whatever skills she deems necessary, after running them by me or Skarpur,' Nóttleiðtogi announced.

Heather didn't know how to take that. At first glance, it didn't seem to be that bad, not in any way that would require Nóttreiði to be maneuvered into being unable to refuse to cooperate.

'So I will watch Joy,' Nóttreiði said quickly. 'I can do that.'

Nótthljóður chirped happily at that announcement, moving away from Heather and her mother to scurry across the cavern and bounced off of her brother's side. 'Yes!'

'Some of the time,' Skarpur said. 'You will not be patrolling at first, for the same reason the Myrkurs do not patrol alone now. They were reckless and forced us to attack instead of safely avoiding being spotted.'

Nóttreiði seemed to struggle with himself for a moment, but in the end hung his head deferentially. 'I suppose that is reasonable. But I am not going to do it again.'

'Prove to us that you will not repeat past mistakes,' his father suggested calmly. 'You will be helping Heather some nights, and so will I.'

Heather flinched at that. Nóttreiði, helping her get around? It seemed unthinkable, even more so than Nóttleiðtogi doing the same. At that, could Nóttleiðtogi even do it, if he was uneasy so much as touching her? She didn't want to be left in the cavern all night every night, and walking with assistance was better than sitting around doing nothing.

'I…' Again, Nóttreiði seemed to struggle with himself, looking down at Joy, who stared up at him with wide, innocent eyes.

Heather wasn't sure she believed his hesitation this time around. She still hadn't the faintest clue what was really going through his head when it came to her, so she _couldn't _believe it, not safely.

'You think it will help you?' Nóttreiði eventually asked.

'I think it is worth a try,' his father answered. 'You cannot understand something by avoiding forever.'

'Then I will do it,' Nóttreiði conceded quietly, not even looking at Heather, though it was her they were talking about.

Heather didn't bother asking whether anyone cared if _she _was comfortable basically relying on Nóttreiði for what sounded like a solid third of her nights for the next few months. Several things Nóttleiðtogi had said to her recently now made far more sense. Such as when he had promised that the entire family would help her against Dagur, and when he had said he would make sure that he would get used to her presence. Not to mention him telling her to keep pulling Nóttreiði in, whatever he had meant by that. He had been planning something like this from the night they returned.

And she couldn't say it wouldn't work. He had pledged their help in improving her skills, just like she and Einfari had planned. He had committed himself to spending entire nights with her, and he had given her other nights to work on Nóttreiði, whatever that would mean in practice.

He was giving her an opportunity to do everything she wanted to, despite Einfari leaving. She just hoped she could take advantage of it.

The next few months were going to be… Different. And she was going to be facing them without-

No, not without. Heather smiled to herself, not caring if anyone noticed. They had the link. She wasn't going to be devoid of her friend's opinions or advice, even if their physical paths were taking them separate ways for a while.

* * *

Astrid had never been to Berserker island before, but she knew exactly what to expect. Dagur had been in control for several years; that was enough time for him to remake his tribe in his image.

Still, she decided to at least show some feigned interest as her hunt would rely in part on Dagur's aid. His subordinates would be easier to control if they thought that the Berserker tribe did anything but make Astrid yawn.

The hunt that was coming soon. She left the cabin she shared with Dagur and ascended to the deck of the lead Berserker warship. It was not at all impressive, but that was to be expected. He had called this small fleet the dregs of his armada, after all.

Dagur was out on deck, calling orders with frantic energy. Astrid avoided him; she was no sailor, and if he could get them in to dock faster, she would leave him to it. Speed was of the essence.

Berserker island wasn't much to look at, in Astrid's opinion. She made her way to the very front of the ship and examined the island in the distance. Sure, there was a large village, and plenty of signs of a prosperous tribe, but that was all she saw. She didn't care about the people, only the warriors. In her eyes, they were nothing but fodder to be used.

Dagur saw it differently. He valued the tribe, not the hunt. But he liked the hunt too, and that was enough for her to work with. She could pretend to care about the Berserkers for as long as it took to wipe every dragon off the face of Midgard.

"Ah, the dangerous, awe-inspiring island of Berserker heritage!" Dagur sighed from somewhere far too close behind her. His hand clapped her pauldron conspiratorily. "It'd look better if the fleet was here."

"How soon can we set sail to where the fleet is searching?" That was the next step; everything else was irrelevant.

"Two days. We'll be married by nightfall, while the ships are resupplying."

"Acceptable. And I want to pick out some of your men as my personal detachment, once I have authority over them."

"Of course!" Dagur laughed knowingly. "However many you want to have, pick twice that. You can weed out the annoying ones on the way to the fleet."

Astrid smiled at what Dagur really meant by that. She wouldn't kill quite as freely as he did, given every dead soldier was one less to kill dragons with, but simply having the option was freeing. She would never have gotten away with openly killing the Berkians who annoyed her.

And on the subject of Berkians… "Have Gobber officially declared a Berserker." It wouldn't do any harm, and she wanted to make sure he was tied to her. There was no going back, and she didn't intend to lose her advisor. "Also, make sure everyone knows not to kill him. I need him."

"Of course," Dagur granted magnanimously. "You don't get to kill Savage, by the way. He's off-limits."

"Deal." She would kill Savage if he got in the way, but other than that, he was safe.

"Oh," Dagur continued, sliding his hand down her side to wrap around her waist. She restrained a sudden surge of murderous anger, forcing herself to remember what he was providing her hunt, and that they _would _be married by the end of the day.

"What?" she asked sharply.

"You don't get to kill prisoners either," he said casually. "Not without asking me first. I've got one right now that we kind of need alive."

"Really?" Astrid asked. "Who?" She knew Dagur hadn't taken anyone interesting; both the Night Furies and their cursed riders had gotten away.

Dagur told her, and as he explained the importance of the prisoner, a cruel smile wormed its way onto Astrid's face. The hunt was going to go _very _well.

_**Author's Note: **_**You know, I had originally intended this chapter to cover a lot more time than it did. But the next set of scenes doesn't really fit with this bit, so I ended it here (and gave you a little bonus footage of our villains, just in case you thought we'd forgotten about them). Next week, we get some actual action!**


	30. Chapter 30

_**Author's Note: **_**I **_**almost **_**missed the deadline for this one, but it's out!**

**Also, on the same subject of posting, the holiday week around Thanksgiving is going to mess with my schedule, but in a predictable way. The next **_**Living Anonymously **_**chapter will come out not on the Thursday after next, but on the following Monday, alongside other similarly delayed chapters from my other stories. As a consolation for that, know that I'm going to have a week with no higher priority than **_**finishing **_**this story's rewriting. We're close enough to the end that I think I can do it. If I **_**do **_**manage to get that far, we'll be going back to weekly posts until the conclusion of this story. (**_**Living Freely **_**is going to need just as comprehensive a rewrite, but we'll see where I'm at on that one when we get there. At this point, I'm actually glad I've not written any of the fourth story in this series, just plotted it out. At least I won't feel the need to rewrite that one when we get to it.)**

'Heather?' Nóttleiðtogi called out, poking his head around the corner to look in on her. 'Are you up yet?'

"Pretty much," Heather agreed, extricating herself from between Nótthljóður's paws. Ever since Einfari flew off the previous night, Nótthljóður had apparently missed her sister's warmth and compensated by clinging to the only other source of heat available. "Just… Give me a minute…"

Nóttleiðtogi seemed to notice her difficulty, his eyes widening. 'Need help?'

"No," Heather grunted, shoving a surprisingly heavy paw off of her leg. At least Nótthljóður hadn't put any pressure on her leg in the middle of the day. That would have been a far less pleasant wake-up call. A few more pushes, and she was free of the fledgling's grasp.

'Skarpur will be along soon,' Nóttleiðtogi said quietly. 'It is not quite dusk yet. I wish to take you to the shore, if you will.'

"Okay," Heather agreed, noticing Nóttleiðtogi's formal speech, which was stiffer than normal, even for him. He seemed tense, which was absolutely no surprise.

Nóttleiðtogi let Heather walk out of the cavern ahead of him, trailing behind with quiet steps and the occasional rumble. The sun was setting outside, and Heather lingered in the warm rays, savoring the rare moment of daylight. She decided that she was going to start getting up earlier; she could live without the sun, but there was no reason to entirely deprive herself of it when her sleeping schedule was _already _weird.

'If we are quick, we will reach the shore in time to see the setting sun,' Nóttleiðtogi offered, overtaking her with a quick walk. 'That was my intention.'

Heather noticed that he wasn't offering to fly them there, and said nothing of it. Given just how messed up Nóttleiðtogi was, she expected he would never take any human on his back for any reason.

The walk through the forest was pleasant enough that Heather didn't mind not flying to the shore; she enjoyed the colors, something severely lacking at night. Her backside ached, but that was getting better by the night, and she was used to the pain walking caused.

'How is Einfari doing?' Nóttleiðtogi asked at one point in their walk, seemingly at random.

Heather checked her friend's sight for a moment, but saw nothing at all, a blackness tinted at the edges with a soft glow. "Still asleep."

'I meant in general, but good to know,' Nóttleiðtogi chuffed.

"She's fine," Heather replied. It had only been a night; if things were going to go wrong, they wouldn't go wrong so early in the journey. "I think the Myrkurs are getting on her nerves already, but it's not like everyone has to fly wingtip to wingtip, so that shouldn't be a problem."

'And Maour?'

"I mean, I guess he's fine," Heather replied. She didn't have a direct link to him, and just because Einfari was carrying him didn't mean she was any more privy to his thoughts than anyone else.

'Good. I would not see anyone on that trip hurt, not even the Myrkur humans, but I worry for those two more than the rest.'

His daughter, and his… counsellor seemed to be the best word. Maybe friend, but Heather couldn't be sure of that particular designation, and wouldn't want to use it in front of Nóttleiðtogi. He might very well take offense at the idea.

They continued on in silence until the shore came into view. Heather stopped just short of the sand, staring out at the massive, vibrantly orange panorama in front of her. Nóttleiðtogi stopped beside her, just out of arm's reach, staring out at the scene.

'I thought this would be a good way to start the night,' Nóttleiðtogi said quietly. 'A calming moment.'

Heather held back the coarse joke that had come to mind and said nothing. Saying that it seemed like Nóttleiðtogi was trying to take her on a romantic date was a good way to make him despise her like he apparently did the twins, and she would despise _herself_ for making such a stupid joke. Just because it came to mind didn't mean it needed to be said; Nótts didn't blurt out everything on their minds.

Heather realized a moment later that she had called herself a Nótt, but decided to think nothing of it. She _was _one; they had accepted her as their responsibility, a ward of their family. Even if she did not claim the title as part of her name or anything like that, such a gesture meant something.

'Anything on your mind?' Nóttleiðtogi asked.

Heather shrugged her shoulders. "Nothing important."

Nóttleiðtogi looked over at her with a distinctly amused expression. 'I know what a sharp inhale followed by a relaxed posture means, thanks to watching Maour. You _have _thought of, or possibly realized, something of note.'

Heather smiled guiltily. "Well, yes, but…"

'Continue,' Nóttleiðtogi offered, phrasing it politely. 'I will not force it out of you, but if you want to continue building trust…'

"That's unfair, but fine," Heather complained, feeling embarrassed. She wasn't going to risk lying to Nóttleiðtogi, not when he could apparently smell it if conditions were right. Knowing him, he might very well be testing her under that seemingly casual exterior. "I realized that I had thought of myself as a Nótt."

Nóttleiðtogi continued to eye her neutrally. 'And what did you think after that?'

"That it was fine, because your family took me in, and that it's an accurate description of me?" Heather replied tentatively, hoping he wouldn't take that the wrong way.

'Interesting,' Nóttleiðtogi chuffed. 'And you definitely fit our family more than any other.'

"It's not even close," Heather murmured. She was in no way fit to be an Eldur or a Myrkur, and the Svarturs were just too… Trusting was the best way she could put it.

'I suppose not,' Nóttleiðtogi agreed. After a long moment of silence, he lay down, burying his paws in the sand, and wrapped his tail around his side. 'Tell me if you get hungry. I can go for fish at any time.'

Heather sat down beside him, keeping to the distance he had established, just out of arm's reach, and leaned back on her hands, looking up at the sky. "I'll be fine for a while. After the sun sets." She wouldn't want to spend all night lazing around like this, but it was a pleasant start to the day, and anything that relaxed Nóttleiðtogi would be good for both of them.

A swishing sound caught Heather's attention, and a quick glance toward Nóttleiðtogi revealed the source. His tail was sliding toward her hands, moving shakily but steadily.

"You really mean to work on it," Heather said, trusting that Nóttleiðtogi would catch her meaning.

'I do,' Nóttleiðtogi rumbled. 'It is a stupid, limiting problem, and I will not allow it to get the better of me.' His tail brushed her hand, and then flinched away.

"I appreciate it, even if you aren't doing it for me," she said, meaning every word. Regardless of motive, him improving would make life easier for her, so-

'I _am _doing it for you,' Nóttleiðtogi replied quietly, his tail once again brushing her hand, and this time staying there, the tip resting against her forearm. There was an audible strain in his voice, but it faded as he spoke. 'For my daughter, and for myself, but also for you. Do not discount that.'

Heather didn't reply; she felt that anything she said would only cheapen the moment. Instead, she watched the last remnants of the sunset disappear and savored the feeling of smooth fins on her arm, the feeling of trust finally established on a fundamental level. A shaky, uncertain trust, and one she was not sure she had truly earned, but trust nonetheless.

She hoped her time with Nóttreiði would eventually produce such a moment. He was the last of the Nótts to resent her, and she wanted more than ever to correct that, to earn her place in his eyes, to earn his trust, however impossible that always seemed when she was actually interacting with him.

But if there was such a moment with Nóttreiði coming, it would not be coming soon, so Heather did her best to remain in the moment and savor the feeling now. She had a feeling that the rest of the night was not going to be so bad for either of them.

* * *

Toothless flapped his wings desperately, staring out at the ocean, and closed his eyes. Maour's senses were easily accessed, as always, and he quickly immersed himself in sight and sound while holding off on the other three. Taste and touch were no good most of the time, and smell would mean he had to smell Einfari, who Maour was riding on. There was nothing wrong with that, and she smelled nice enough, but he did not want to be distracted from the sensation he was hoping to cobble together from his brother's senses and his own movements.

"So, is this working for you?" Maour murmured, leaning forward in the saddle, his head over Einfari's neck and ears. "Should I ask Einfari to go faster?"

'No, just like that,' Toothless specified absently, trying to match his pointless flapping to the rhythm of the wings he could see at the edges of Maour's vision. It was kind of working, but he couldn't shake the feeling of standing on the ground no matter what he did. Not having Maour's weight on his back didn't help either, and his false fin hung limp, throwing him off and bothering him on an instinctual level.

'It's no good,' Toothless soon admitted with an annoyed growl. 'I'm just frustrating myself.' He _could _handle not flying, but it was annoying that such a good idea just didn't work.

"Sorry, bud," Maour said sadly. "Einfari, can you ask Heather-"

'She will be healed enough to start learning to use Toothless's tail fin in a few weeks,' Einfari replied sternly. 'Not before. Asking again will not change that.'

'I will be fine until then,' Toothless said, hoping that he was telling the truth. He had handled days in the cove more or less grounded, and at least in this case he knew for sure when he would be back in the air. Add that to the instinctual distraction of guarding the eggs, which required him to be on the ground a lot more than normal, and he really shouldn't have much of a problem waiting.

And no matter what, he wouldn't _admit _he was suffering if Maour asked or guessed. He would live, and Maour didn't deserve to feel guilty about something neither of them could help. The next best solution would have had him flying, true, but it also would have had _both _of them missing the hatching of their new siblings, and that was a literal once-in-a-lifetime event.

Toothless snorted in amusement as the maddening desire to leap into the air despite the futility faded from his wings and legs, replaced by a subtle unease and desire to go check on his mother and future siblings. There was something twisted about combating one instinct with another, but it worked, so he wasn't going to question it. Something told him that the time would pass quicker if he focused on the eggs, not his own flightlessness, and he was more than willing to test that theory out.

* * *

"So?" Ruffnut asked impatiently, leaning over Maour's shoulder. "Is this the place?"

"Give him time to read the map," Fishlegs advised, looking over from Myrkurheili's saddle. "Based on the time we have spent flying, the number of stops, and-"

"The map," Tuffnut cut in. "We don't need any of that other stuff."

'I hope this is the place we are to split up,' Einfari muttered irritably.

Maour agreed, but he wasn't about to rush into it. They had to send four different dragons and riders in four different directions, and he wanted to be sure they had indeed landed on the right uninhabited island for rest the night before. If they were even slightly off-course in their island-hopping, adjustments would have to be made to the directions everyone would be following.

But it all looked good; the path was not straightforward, but he _knew _they had passed a conspicuously inhabited island with a crescent shape three nights ago, and that gave him a good reference point.

Yes, it all looked good. He folded the map up and put it away, stowing it in Einfari's saddlebag. "Yeah, this is it. You all remember where you're going?"

'We can just ask if we do not, right?' Myrkurvængur asked.

'Yes, but you should not rely on that,' his father replied.

"Don't worry," Ruffnut said from atop Myrkurvængur. "We've got this. I have a mind like the finest metal helmet in the land. Nothing gets out."

"And nothing gets in," Tuffnut added slyly.

"Exactly," Ruffnut agreed, tapping her head.

"Okay, it's all settled. Let's go!" Tuffnut declared, pointing at the distant horizon. "To the end of the world!"

'To the Rockbreakers,' Myrkurljós countered. 'Maybe later we can find that.' He sprang into the air, and they were off.

"Hey, wait a second!" Ruffnut objected, looking like she had just realized something. "That was an insult! Vængur, after them!"

Myrkurvængur leaped into the air and proceeded to fly in the opposite direction, much to Ruffnut's loudly vocalized annoyance.

'At least they are going the right direction,' Myrkurheili observed. 'But I am glad we have lines of communication open between us all. Otherwise, I do not think we would ever see them again.' With that, he crouched and leaped upward with a heavy flap, and powered forward, working against Fishlegs' weight.

'You know,' Einfari observed as they watched Myrkurheili depart, 'I never realized how strong Berg has gotten until I had to carry Fishlegs myself, and then watched others do so.'

"At least they both got stronger, instead of Berg doing all the work," Maour reasoned. "Ready to go?"

'I am content to just not be in their company any longer,' Einfari purred. 'Myrkurs are exhausting. But yes, let's go.'

Once they were in the air, Maour leaned back in the saddle, feeling as he had every night of their flight. Bored. Not having half a tailfin to operate left him restless and always on edge, like his body knew he _should _be doing something. It wasn't even noticeable when he rode other Svarturs on occasion, but on an extended trip, it was getting to him.

'I see you're up,' Einfari murmured to herself, clearly talking to Heather. Her flight had smoothed out into as close to a glide as she could get with the uncertain winds buffeting them every once in a while.

Maour closed his eyes and accessed Toothless's sense of hearing, wondering if his brother was up yet. It was barely dusk at the moment; they had gotten an early start.

'Yes?' Toothless asked in a low voice. 'I am watching the eggs today. How are things there?'

Maour decided to check in on Toothless's sight, too, and was soon able to see a blank cavern wall. "Boring," he admitted. "How about you?"

'Same,' Toothless agreed. 'I was actually planning to sleep for a while. Dad just got me up to take over. But if you want to talk-'

"No, go ahead and sleep. I might do the same." He didn't think he could, given the winds slamming into them every so often, but he could try. "We all split up just now, so it's me and Einfari now. Nobody else around."

'Which means you can actually rest without watching for mishaps,' Einfari remarked, privy to Maour's side of the conversation.

"Pretty much," Maour agreed. "So… Talk to you later, I guess?"

'Later, when we are both awake,' Toothless agreed. He closed his eyes, and Maour cut off the connection on his end, returning to his current situation just as a particularly strong wind slammed into them from behind, throwing them forward just a little faster than before.

'I do not think you will be sleeping,' Einfari said. 'This is going to be a long night's flight, if these winds keep up.'

"Yeah, you're probably right. At least it's quiet." Maour didn't mind his friends talking, but after two weeks in the air with the twins and squabbling amplified by the Myrkurs egging them on, and Fishlegs often getting into it in a futile attempt to bring calm discussion to chaos itself-

Yes, Maour was glad to be clear of that for a while. "Don't get used to it," he cautioned both himself and Einfari. "The Meatheads are more like the twins than me, and we'll be with them for two months."

'Of course they are,' Einfari groaned. 'And dangerous, too, even if they are allies. But we are not there yet. Let's enjoy the peace and quiet while we can.'

* * *

'Fish,' Nóttreiði grumbled, dropping a pile of limp, pale salmon at Heather's feet. 'What else?'

"That's enough," Heather declared, not liking the way he was speaking, but distinctly aware that she had absolutely no recourse aside from complaining to his parents later. "Thank you. I won't need you for a while."

'Good.' Nóttreiði quickly left the cave, abandoning her and the pile of raw fish-

_Raw_. Heather smacked her forehead as she realized that she had forgotten to ask him to cook them. He probably hadn't even remembered that was a necessity for her; he seemed to be doing his best to forget the nights spent helping her as soon as they were over, and interacting with her as little as possible on those nights.

Heather picked up the nearest salmon and tossed it back onto the pile, where it landed with a disgusting squelch before sliding off and hitting the cave floor. She needed someone to heat the fish for her, and Nóttreiði was undoubtedly long gone.

Why had she thought this would go as well as her nights with his father did? She reluctantly got to her feet, weathering the ache in her backside out of force of will. _That _was getting easier every night, which was encouraging.

'Morning, Heather,' Einfari warbled in her head, apparently just waking up.

"Got a late start?" Heather asked her friend, grabbing a few salmon as she spoke. She would head deeper into the cavern, toward the central shaft, and ask a favor of whoever was lingering there. It would be easier than tracking Nóttreiði down, a task that could take all night with her current handicap.

'Maour wants us to arrive in the day, so he changed how far we fly these last few nights,' Einfari replied. 'I don't really understand his plan, but he says it will have us getting there at the right time without feeling tired _or _having to adjust our sleep cycle all at once. I can ask him for an explanation if you want.'

"No thanks." She would leave that kind of thing to the person who actually had to think about it.

'I see salmon,' Einfari commented, accessing Heather's sense of sight. 'Raw salmon. Trying something new? They're good like that.'

"No way," Heather replied. "I'm just going to find someone to cook it for me."

'Find someone… This is my brother's day to help you, isn't it?' Einfari growled. 'He left you with raw fish. He isn't supposed to be leaving you alone!'

"Having him around me all night would be awkward and frustrating," Heather replied hastily. "Nobody can do that."

'Don't twist my words,' Einfari retorted. 'We both know you know what I mean. Get him in trouble for this. I know dad wanted you two to spend actual time together.'

"I'll bring it up," Heather promised. A part of her felt that it would take something more than just lingering around Nóttreiði to bring about any real change, but she didn't know what that would be, so there was no alternative. "Right now, it's the fish I'm looking to burn, not the dragon."

'Funny,' Einfari deadpanned. 'How's the injury doing?'

"Well enough. Why?"

'Oh, just that Maour is worried about Toothless,' Einfari replied seriously. 'I told him you'd go to Toothless the moment you felt up to it so that he would stop bugging me about it. Got that?'

"Yeah, I've got it." Heather had no problem with that; she was actually missing flying, and helping Toothless fly seemed like an interesting and potentially life-saving skill for her to learn if she could. "That won't be for a while, though."

'I know. But it _is _getting better.'

"Definitely." She could walk without much pain, and every new night brought with it a smaller gash, as best she could tell. She was healing.

Really, everything aside from Nóttreiði was going well. She was healing fine, Nóttleiðtogi was improving steadily in controlling his unease, and Einfari hadn't hit any issues on her journey yet.

Of course, with Einfari and Maour only a few nights away from the Meatheads, that last one might soon change, and it was entirely possible that one of the other rider-dragon pairs would run into trouble with their respective allies.

* * *

"So _this _is the famous Bog Burglar island," Ruffnut said as Myrkurvængur circled above the flat, mostly unimpressive landmass. "It looks like somebody took a normal island and stepped on it."

'It looks like a pawprint after a storm,' Myrkurvængur agreed eagerly. 'Wet and muddy.'

"That's the whole archipelago," Ruffnut countered. "Anyway, we're not here for the boring ponds and scraggly little trees. Fly down to the huts and docks.'

'Do I get to start blasting if they attack?' Myrkurvængur asked, still sounding eager, just as any proper Myrkur should at the prospect of a fight.

Ruffnut sighed dramatically. "Sadly, no. We have to play nice." Everyone had been insistent on that, and she could see the point, but it was disappointing nonetheless. Being a dragon rider should mean unbridled chaos at any time, not carefully considered plans that _might _end in glorious chaos if everything went right.

'Then what do I do?' Myrkurvængur asked, sounding slightly less confident.

"Do I have to think of everything?" Ruffnut grumbled. "Just follow my lead." She would get this done right, if only to spite Tuffnut. He had mocked her for being stuck with the youngest Myrkur; she'd show him.

Once they had flown down to the docks and landed, Myrkurvængur brought up another problem. 'I don't see anyone.'

"Duh, it's the middle of the night." Ruffnut dismounted and turned in a slow circle, taking in the ships to either side of them. "Sleek, large cargo holds… Yes, we're in the right place." At least she and Myrkurvængur had been sent to the interesting tribe. Maybe she could learn some special techniques for stealing later.

'Should I roar?' Myrkurvængur asked hopefully.

Ruffnut groaned in annoyance; Blast would have just done it, not asked her first. Myrkurvængur had a long way to go before he was as fun to hang around with. He made a better target than co-conspirator most of the time. "Go ahead."

A loud Night Fury screech resounded across the Bog Burglar island, and Ruffnut smiled, imagining the reactions. She would never get tired of scaring people with that, even if she couldn't imitate the distinctive call well enough to do it personally.

"One pranking-Myrkur-Fury, two pranking-Myrkur-Fury…" Ruffnut counted, tapping her foot in time.

At thirty seconds, Myrkurvængur began looking around, eyeing their surroundings. 'Should it be taking this long?'

"Thirty-five pranking-Myrkur-Fury," Ruffnut continued, unconcerned. It seemed the Bog Burglars weren't that alert when it came to their own island. She would have expected some sort of reaction, at least. The huts were all still dark and silent.

At sixty seconds, Ruffnut's prankster instincts sounded the warning. Something wasn't right, and she could sense that they were on the wrong end of the joke. She looked back at the ships to either side of them.

Ten Bog Burglar women lined the deck of either ship, silent, still, and armed with crossbows.

"Well, that explains that," Ruffnut quipped. "Vængur, don't move." She knew danger when she saw it, and being filled with crossbow bolts wouldn't be fun at all.

'Don't-' Vængur began, turning his head to see what she was looking at. The moment his eyes landed on the first Bog Burglar, he barked and jumped back in shock, pushing himself right off the narrow dock by accident and landing in the water with a loud splash.

'Cold!' Vængur barked, flailing wildly in the water. 'Ruffnut, help!'

Ruffnut rushed over to the edge of the dock and looked down, for the moment totally ignoring the Bog Burglars watching everything. Night Furies did _not _do well in deep water, and she would never hear the end of it if Myrkurvængur drowned right next to a dock. "Grab the dock," she advised, holding out an arm to try and haul him up by his ears if they came within reach.

The sound of claws digging into wet wood told Ruffnut that Myrkurvængur had taken her advice, but the flailing and splashing barely slowed. 'So cold!' he complained loudly, thrashing his wings around even more wildly for evidence.

"Climb up, then!" Ruffnut suggested, wondering if he was trying to prank her. She was almost within reach-

"Not gonna happen," she said as she saw what he was doing, and quickly backed away from the edge of the dock. "You're gonna have to try harder than that to pull one over _me!_"

'Worth a try,' Myrkurvængur grumbled, easily climbing up the support and pulling himself onto the dock. 'Why'd you have to scare me?'

"Hey, _they _did the scaring," Ruffnut retorted, pointing behind herself without looking. "I told you not to look." Yes, Myrkurvængur definitely had a long way to go before he was the equal of Blast or Boom. In the meantime, she would have to find a way to get him in retaliation for trying to prank her.

'Why are they staring?' Myrkurvængur hissed, shaking himself off and watching behind her with wide eyes. 'Don't Vikings shoot first and ask questions later?'

Oh, right. That. Ruffnut turned to address the Bog Burglars, only to find that one of them was in the process of leaping down onto the deck, a huge woman with a commanding glare. Good, their leader was here. That would make this easy.

"I don't even know what I'm looking at," the large woman admitted in a stern voice. "Maour sent you, right?"

"No, just a random Night Fury and rider dropping in and then dropping off of your dock," Ruffnut quipped. "Yeah, we're from the Isle of Night." She liked that name; full of mystery and importance, while hiding a mostly empty island of dragons and pranksters. It was a prank in and of itself.

"Good." The woman approached and offered a large, meaty hand, which Ruffnut shook. "Chief Bertha, of the Bog Burglars. We'll be leaving in two days."

"Great." Ruffnut looked over at the ships still lined with armed warriors. "Not tonight?"

"Don't ask why, and we won't lie," Bertha said warningly. "We don't usually let visitors come here at all. At least Maour had the sense to send a woman."

"Yeah, he has his moments," Ruffnut agreed idly. "So, I've been told you have a daughter who can hold her own as a troublemaker."

"What of it?"

'Remember,' Myrkurvængur volunteered to Ruffnut, standing awkwardly behind her, 'Tuffnut says you should be his wing-woman, whatever that means.'

Ruffnut gave no sign of hearing Myrkurvængur; she had absolutely no intention of doing that. If this 'Camicazi' got on her nerves badly enough, maybe. Otherwise, Tuffnut was going to have to do all the work himself. "I think we'll get along well."

"You can meet her tomorrow," Bertha replied. "She's at home, in bed."

"While _you _are sitting around in docked ships in the middle of the night?"

"Don't ask questions," Bertha said warningly. "And I don't want the dragon poking around our island. You both sleep here, on one of these ships."

"Geez, talk about a cold welcome," Ruffnut griped. Something told her that there were secrets to be uncovered regarding the still-dark huts on the island behind her, but Maour _had _told everyone not to antagonize their allies… And Bertha would be on guard. She could investigate later. "Fine."

"Good." Bertha looked past Ruffnut, at Myrkurvængur. "Dragon? You understand?" she asked tentatively, sounding as if she was desperately hoping she wasn't making herself look like an idiot.

Myrkurvængur nodded politely. 'I do,' he warbled, though he had to know Bertha wouldn't hear him. For added emphasis, he sat back on his tail and smiled broadly.

"Great." Bertha nodded back at him. "A female dragon, too."

Ruffnut held in a snort at Myrkurvængur's insulted whine. She sensed an opportunity there, and seized upon it almost without thinking. "Yeah, Myrkurvængur, the little sister of her family. Maour figured you'd appreciate an all-female envoy."

'Ruffnut!' Myrkurvængur barked angrily, walking up right behind her and shoving his nose into the back of her legs. 'Stop it. Tell them the truth.'

"She wants us to get some sleep," Ruffnut lied. "Stop it yourself," she hissed at Myrkurvængur. "They'll like you better this way. Play along." She hadn't anticipated the Bog Burglars being ignorant enough about dragon anatomy to make the obvious, but wrong, conclusion, but she was more than open to taking advantage of it.

'But…' Myrkurvængur wilted and stopped pushing at her. 'Fine,' he grumbled.

Ruffnut held in a smug laugh, knowing it would ruin the trick. Myrkurvængur was so easy to trick, and so eager to do exactly what Maour and the rest of the pack had told them they needed to do, keeping their allies happy with them… Maybe once she revealed in a few months that none of this had been necessary, he would be a little more rebellious, as befitted a true Myrkur. Really, she was doing him a favor. A hilarious 'favor' that was a prank on everyone involved except herself, but still. This trip was getting off to a great start.

* * *

"Dragon rider!" a loud Viking called out in greeting. "Down 'ere!"

'Fishlegs?' Myrkurheili asked carefully.

"The human side of things looks safe," Fishlegs replied, staring down at the village. "Weird construction, strange island topography, but all as expected. No obvious traps, nothing. What about Skrill?"

'Not a cloud in sight,' Myrkurheili said, somewhat unnecessarily, as both could see that easily enough. 'No storm means if we _do _run into one, it'll die. Remember what I told you?'

"We'll get above it, I'll fall and smash its head with my hammer on the way down, and you'll catch me," Fishlegs recited nervously, tapping his fingers against the flat head of the small warhammer he had brought along. "But I'm really not so-"

'Skrill!' Myrkurheili barked.

Fishlegs clung with both arms and legs to the saddle, holding on tight. "Retreat!" he screamed.

'There's no Skrill,' Myrkurheil said, casting Fishlegs a flat stare.

Fishlegs swallowed and timidly said, "I mean, attack?"

Mykurheili groaned loudly. 'Where's your fire? Your drive to fight?'

"I don't have one," Fishlegs mumbled. He brightened and said, "I like to think that words can resolve any conflict without resorting to violence."

'Everyone has the will to fight,' Mykurheili said, thrumming deep in thought, 'it just takes more for some people to draw it out. Hmm...' he paused for a moment, contemplating, and then suddenly crooned happily.

Fishlegs looked at him out of the corner of his eyes. "You're scheming, aren't you?"

'Have you never met a Myker before?'

Fishlegs groaned. "Let's just go meet the Waxears."

'They all seem to have turned out to see us,' Myrkurheili observed as they flew lower. 'And to prepare their ships. Ask them how soon they will be leaving.'

"I take it you're from the Isle of Night?" a man with a young girl standing beside him called out. "Land wherever. Our huts are sturdy."

'He offers to let us land on top of their huts?' Myrkurheili asked. 'Is there a hidden meaning to that?'

"Probably that he knows we're a little wary," Fishlegs replied after a moment. "Or that he thinks we're cowards." He didn't know; reading people was not his strong suit.

Myrkurheili touched down on top of one of the smaller huts, perching atop the iron frame all the huts sported, and warbled pleasantly down at the assembled Waxears.

"Welcome to our island," the same man said loudly, walking through the crowd toward the hut they had landed on. "I am Aldir, Chief of the Waxears."

"Fishlegs, rider of the Isle of Night," Fishlegs replied. "Along with Myrkurheili, dragon of the Isle of Night."

'And the rest,' Myrkurheili prompted eagerly.

"Do I have to?" Fishlegs asked. He had hoped the first encounter would be too chaotic for Myrkurheili to remember that.

'If you get to be a rider of the Isle of Night, I get my own title,' Myrkurheili insisted. 'Now say it before things become awkward, and before I "accidentally" drop you in the ocean when we next go flying.'

"Also known," Fishlegs abruptly continued, "as the Dark Adventurer of Fire and Shadow."

A collection of confused stares and uncertain looks greeted that remark. "The dragon?" Aldir asked.

"Yes, the dragon," Fishlegs replied, entirely aware that-

"Who names a dragon somethin' like that?" somebody muttered loudly.

'Tell them I decided to call myself that,' Myrkurheili urged.

"Later," Fishlegs groaned. "At least let me get down off of this hut first." He wasn't good with awkward situations, and Myrkurheili seemed intent on making _all _situations awkward for the foreseeable future, but he had to look on the bright side. At least there were no Skrill around, and the tribe seemed cautiously open to their presence. He had feared a baying mob out for Night Fury hats.

* * *

"Ooh," Tuffnut gasped. "I've got one. What if they try to capture us and make you into hats?"

'Then we turn their island into a heap of charred wood,' Myrkurljós replied blithely. 'How did you come up with that one?'

"Fishlegs was whining about how many different ways this could go wrong right before we left home," Tuffnut explained. "He had some good ones."

'Was bad weather on his list?' Myrkurljós asked.

Tuffnut looked at the heavy fog all around them and shrugged his shoulders. "Thunderstorms, hurricanes, tornados, and acts of various gods, but not fog. Even he can't think of everything." Not to mention this was a boring way for things to go wrong, even by Fishlegs' standards. Tuffnut would have preferred any of the other disasters, or something crazy.

"Ooh, what if the fog _exploded_?" he wondered aloud. "Like with a Zippleback."

'We'd be dead… But it _would _be fun to watch from somewhere not in the fog,' Myrkurljós agreed.

"Zipplebacks are cool," Tuffnut mused. "They can make gas that explodes. I wish mine did."

'I am glad yours does not,' Myrkurljós replied with a rumbling laugh. 'Take out that map again. Aren't we supposed to be there by now?'

Tuffnut pulled out the damp, badly-folded piece of parchment Maour had given him, and stared at it blankly. As far as he could tell, they _should _by flying right at the island they were heading to.

Of course, he couldn't see very far at the moment. It would be annoying if they passed the island over thanks to the fog. "Fly closer to the water so we don't fly right over without seeing it," he suggested.

"Tuffnut, any closer and I'll be skimming it with every wingbeat,' Myrkurljós replied, tossing his head in annoyance. 'But nothing I can do will stop us from passing to either side. You need to tell me if I'm going the right way.'

"How would I know?" Tuffnut asked irritably, crumpling the map up. "We could be flying in circles for all I can tell."

At that very moment, a large shape loomed out of the fog directly in front of them, and Myrkurljós pulled up in surprise, slowing down dramatically and in the process smacking Tuffnut's face into the saddle.

"'Ey!" Tuffnut cried out.

'Found… Something.' Myrkurljós turned to fly along the sheer stone cliff jutting out of the water, slowly gliding alongside it. It seemed to go on forever in all directions, fading into the grey mist.

Then, just as Tuffnut was trying to get a good look at the stone itself, lacking anything else of interest, the stone fell away, and an ominous sight rose out of the mist in the distance. Scores of dark orange lights burned along a rocky coastline, dispelling small amounts of the fog around them and providing landmarks.

"Cool," Tuffnut said admiringly. He liked spooky lanterns best of all lanterns. Maybe he could bring one home. The Rockbreakers wouldn't notice one going missing, not when they had so many. Some were even moving-

'We are looking for a fleet,' Myrkurljós said, angling toward the moving portion of the lights. 'I think these are our target.'

"Right. Okay, you know the plan," Tuffnut began eagerly as they glided toward what looked to be a fleet of warships. "I introduce us, you pretend to attack me, and I pretend to subdue you. We want to make me look good."

'No, the plan is to introduce ourselves and be careful,' Myrkurljós retorted. 'You know who would have both of our hides if we didn't do that.'

Tuffnut did indeed know, and he didn't want to mess with the wrath of Myrkurhryðjuverk. Not even Myrkurljós did that often, and she was his mate. "Fine, we'll do it the boring way."

* * *

"So," Maour said happily, "everything worked out for them?"

After a moment's delay, Toothless responded. 'Ruffnut apparently says they had no trouble with the Bog Burglars, and are now on their way with the fleet, but Boom says Myrkurvængur was whining about some sort of bow, and female Bog Burglars bothering him. Ruffnut says it's nothing… And now she and Boom are laughing about something, and Boom says it's nothing.'

Maour decided to not pry into that; something told him it would make no sense heard third-hand. Possibly second-hand if he accessed Toothless's hearing to listen to Boom directly, but he wanted to keep his attention on the flight at hand. Meathead island was visible in the distance, and he wanted to keep his wits about him.

'Meanwhile,' Toothless continued after a long pause, 'Tuffnut and Myrkurljós say that everything is going fine, but that, and I quote, "the Rockbreakers are the dullest Vikings to ever go to battle."'

"Did they say why?" Maour asked. Even for Tuffnut, that sounded harsh. He would have expected Tuffnut to try and liven things up, not complain.

'Apparently, they are still mourning the loss of their Chief's son,' Toothless explained. 'So Myrkurljós is making sure Tuffnut does not mortally offend them with some thoughtless prank.'

Now Maour understood. "What about Fishlegs and Myrkurheili?"

'No Skrill, and apparently the Waxears are really thankful we figured out what was going on. It sounds like they're having a great time. And of course, you two aren't there yet. That's everyone.'

"We'll be there pretty soon, actually," Maour corrected. "You planning on being awake for that?"

'Sure, why not?' Toothless asked rhetorically. 'But everyone else here is going back to sleep.'

'Not Heather,' Einfari remarked. 'She's going to be watching too.'

"The more the merrier," Maour decided. He certainly didn't mind having two more people aware of what was going on; this shouldn't be dangerous, but if things did get hairy, it couldn't hurt to have a few level heads advising.

'Oh, and Maour,' Toothless continued in a low voice, 'I have some news.'

"What is it?"

'The eggs are starting to shake,' Toothless replied. 'Mom says that means they'll hatch in a few days. And I can't wake you if you're asleep, not from here, so…'

"So I have to be ready, or I might sleep through it," Maour realized. He was already missing being physically there; missing it entirely was too much to bear. "I've got it. Do you know how long it could take, at most?"

'Three to four more nights, she said, but it could start happening any time now,' Toothless explained.

"I'll be sure to wake up every so often to check in," Maour decided. He couldn't very well stay up for three or four more days and nights straight, so that was the best option. "And I'll be sleeping at night, so that should be enough to be sure you'll always be able to alert me."

'And when it happens, you will get somewhere safe to watch from, right?' Toothless asked. 'I do not like the idea of you being vulnerable that long.'

"I've got Einfari. We can just go flying," Maour reasoned.

'Of course, we can,' Einfari agreed.

Maour startled, staring at the back of Einfari's neck in surprise. How had she known what they were talking about? She couldn't hear Toothless's side of things-

Or at least, not directly. But Heather and Toothless were probably still in the same place, so she could probably hear it from there. Mystery solved.

"How long will it last?" Maour asked. He was looking forward to it, and knowing too much would spoil the experience just a little, but if it was going to be an all-day or all-night event, he wanted to be mentally prepared.

'A while, I think. Mom didn't tell me that. But it will be worth watching,' Toothless asserted confidently. 'You just be sure you'll be in a position to do that safely.'

"Got it." Maour turned his attention to the island on the horizon, more determined than ever to make sure everything went right.

**_Author's Note:_ ****A fun bit of trivia; the original draft of this story ended on chapter 30, which was actually the epilogue. So were I to have not rewritten it, we'd be at the end this week (actually, we'd be at the end more than a month ago, because me not rewriting would mean I'd be able to skip to my weekly schedule). Now, I think we'll be breaking chapter 40.**

** And another fun little stat; with this chapter, _Living Anonymously _will overtake _Living Vicariously _to claim the title of 'my longest currently published story.' _Usurpation of the Darkness _is going to blow it out of the water, but for the time being _ Living Anonymously _is in the lead.**


	31. Chapter 31

_**Author's Note: **_**This chapter is being posted before my beta goes over it, but only because I couldn't get it to them until the night before last, thanks to my lack of a connection. Small to moderate changes may be made in the upcoming days, but I don't anticipate any huge edits. Then again, I've been wrong before…**

**Also, as recompense for this chapter being a few days late, it's longer than normal. (It was going to be longer than normal regardless, but that's my excuse).**

**UPDATE: As expected, there weren't any plot-important changes that needed to be made. The small edits have been made; I don't think anyone wants a list of every removed comma or reworded phrase, so I'll leave it at that. **

'Well, at least we know where to go,' Einfari remarked casually.

"There's no way you're landing there," Heather replied.

'Of course not, it's surrounded by armed Meatheads,' she admitted. Heather was looking through her eyes, so it wasn't like they were seeing different things. Did Heather really think she planned to land in an open plaza ringed by large humans wielding sharp objects? 'I guess it's more accurate to say that at least we know where we're _supposed _to land.'

"Right," Heather murmured. "Look for a better place to land."

'Already on it.' Einfari didn't point out how obvious that was; Heather was probably nervous on her behalf, and not being physically present, the only thing she could do to help was offer suggestions.

"You know, somehow I was expecting a warmer welcome," Maour remarked as he surveyed the area from her back. "Everyone else was polite, by Viking standards."

'Isn't that why we came here?' Einfari asked. She had been under that impression, anyway. The Nótt and the Svartur were best sent to the more dangerous situation when the only alternatives were Myrkurs or Eldurs. Really, two Nótts would be ideal, but Heather had to stay home.

"Yeah, it was," Maour admitted. "See that hut over by the fields?"

Einfari quickly found the large expanse of green grass, and from there easily spotted the single distinctive hut out in the middle of it. 'That seems much less dangerous. And if they charge, we will see them coming with plenty of time to spare.' There would be no hiding amidst paw-high grass, and even the stupidest human was smart enough to know that charging a dragon without any sort of defense was asking to be blasted to pieces.

"Toothless likes it too," Maour agreed. "Just be ready to get us out of arrow range if they do charge. They'll all see us land."

'Of course.' There had to be a few humans stationed around the island with no task other than watching the sky for such a thorough response to have been prepared in the few minutes they had been visible approaching the island. Of course, they were approaching in broad daylight, making the task of spotting them far easier than it should be, but she didn't think that was enough to adequately explain the response time.

"Einfari, do you want me to go looking for the other Nótts?" Heather asked. "This doesn't look so bad, but they might be able to give better advice than I can."

'Second-paw? I don't think so,' Einfari replied after a moment of consideration. 'They taught me well enough, and without being able to actually see all this, they would have to ask too many questions for their advice to be helpful.' The difference in cunning between her and her parents was not so large as to make that delay and abstraction worth it… And she didn't want her parents worrying unless there was something to worry about.

"Okay…" Heather said worriedly. "But I'm blaming you if they ask."

'Deal.' Einfari glided high above the island and made sure to pick an exit strategy before even preparing to dive. The fields were in the center of the artificial structures, which struck her as inefficient, given that they created distance between structures that would otherwise be close together. The downside was that the only safe exit direction was straight up, which was slower than any other escape route. As a backup plan, she could also fly North through a clearing much faster.

That decided, she folded in her wings and dropped like a stone, trusting Maour to hold onto the saddle. There would be no slow, easy descent, not when the safety of their landing spot depended on them being there before any of the humans could arrive.

"Don't land hard, it might break!" Maour shouted as they descended. He sounded so calm as they dropped; she had to attribute that to all the free-falling she had seen him and Toothless doing over the years. This might be more normal for him than her, all things considered, as she did not often find reason to dive in her daily routine.

As the human structure got close, the ground closing in on her plummeting body, Einfari spread her wings, mindful of the extra weight of her passenger that her wings had to bear. Heartbeats later, her paws impacted the wooden top of the human structure, and with an ominous groan, it held her weight. For the moment, that was; she could feel it creaking beneath her.

"Now, we wait," Maour announced. "I hope they have an easily resolved reason for being ready to spear us the moment we set down. Otherwise, this might be a very short stay."

'What are the odds they would find my dead body a worthwhile compensation for breaking the treaty?' Einfari asked warily. She was good at reading and predicting people, but only when said people acted rationally, and according to known values. She didn't know the values or priorities of this group of humans.

"And get wiped out by Dagur? Not likely," Heather scoffed.

"It's not impossible," Maour replied at the same time, "but it would be a really dishonorable move, and I think they wouldn't want to make it right away. Not when holding their axes in check gets us close and, to their minds, unsuspecting."

'That makes sense,' Einfari purred. She liked that Maour could talk and think like a Nótt on occasion; it made him far easier to get along with than anyone from the other two families.

"But it looks like we don't have to speculate for much longer," Maour continued. "There's one, over by the two tall huts."

'I see him.' Bulky, armed with a slender but sharp pole, and wearing a tri-pronged head armor, he or possibly she was not advancing out into the open field. That was a good sign, as it either meant a sense of self-preservation or a more tactical mind at work. Either was useful, assuming these were still their allies.

"Oy, dragon rider!" a gruff voice called out a few moments later. Einfari swung her head around to trace the sound and located the even larger human who had spoken immediately, as he had taken several steps out into the open field. He was their alpha, the chief, if she recalled correctly. It was hard to recognize specific humans, as she defaulted to trying to check eye color like she would a fellow Fury, and eye color was worthless as an identifier for them.

"Mogadon!" Maour called out. "Any reason you had a welcome party waiting with weapons and not food?"

"'Ad to be sure it was you, of course," Mogadon boomed. "Wha' if it had been another Night Fury?"

"Then you would be threatening one of my fellow riders, and one of your allies," Maour replied loudly. "Still a bad move."

'Do not trust him, that could just be his excuse,' Einfari hissed. It was suspect that his reason was so obviously flawed and pointless. That, and the less than friendly welcome made her far more wary of him even if he was hypothetically an ally.

"Eh, best to be prepared," Mogadon replied. "A real Viking wouldn't be bothered by it."

"That's a stupid taunt, too," Heather volunteered. "He has to have heard or noticed that Maour doesn't consider himself a Viking anymore. It was said or implied often enough at the meeting of tribes."

'Sounds like this human is just all-around stupid,' Einfari decided. 'Or acting like it.' One could never really be sure, and she hadn't had much chance to observe Mogadon before now.

"Are you ready to set sail?" Maour called out.

"Two days from now," was the shouted reply. "Stop hidin' up there on our livestock supply hut and come talk to me in person."

"Order your men not to strike at me or her first," Maour replied. Einfari felt him shift and assumed he had gestured to her.

"Ye all heard the boy," Mogadon immediately replied. "Raise a weapon to either black-wearin' oddity up there and I'll demote ye as far as ye can go, and _then _exile yah!"

"Can't get more serious than that," Maour quipped at a more normal volume. "Einfari, I'm not quite ready to trust this was all just a Vikingly lack of common sense, so I'm not going to dismount yet. Can you walk us over there?"

'Watch my back,' Einfari requested, hopping down from the wooden structure. The grass was short and irregular around her paws; she knew the signs of grazing prey, even if the island she had grown up on had no such thing. She wondered where said prey was now; judging by the lingering smell, it had been around recently.

As they approached, the expression on Mogadon's face changed. 'Heather, what emotion does that imply?' Einfari asked. Here was something Heather really could help her with.

"He's annoyed, but not that badly, and possibly a little insulted," Heather interpreted. "Maour's demonstrating that he doesn't trust Mogadon that much right now, and that's an insult whether or not Mogadon was planning anything. Not a big one, so I don't think it will be an issue, but that's why he's unhappy."

"I signed that parchment o' yours," Mogadon growled once Maour was closer. "Stop actin' like I'll go back on it for fun. We both got bigger fish to fry anyway."

"True," Maour agreed. "And thanks for intervening last time."

"Got a good scar out o' it, and a look at what my son still needs to learn about bein' Chief, so I'd say it was worth it anyway," Mogadon admitted. "But yer welcome."

Maour slid down out of the saddle, landing beside Einfari. "Two days, you say?"

"Aye. Thirteen war vessels fully crewed with the finest Meatheads and the finest salted meats for the journey. You here to tell us where we're goin'?"

"Mahelmetan island is where everyone is meeting," Maour hedged. "Einfari and I are here for the trip. We'll be acting as scouts or guides as necessary."

"The other tribes are gettin' the same?"

"Yes. One rider and one Fury each," Maour agreed. "We'll need a place to rest on one of your ships, but we'll be supplying our own food and keeping out of the way of the crew."

"I'll want ye on the leading ship wit' me," Mogadon grunted. "But we're not settin' out yet. We have a guest hut you can use, and a field for any livestock guests bring with them."

Einfari didn't need to understand exactly what he meant by that, but it was clear he was insulting either her or Maour. She bared her teeth and growled warningly.

"She'll be sleeping in the guest hut with me," Maour said firmly.

"Your choice," Mogadon grunted. "Well, I got plenty o' preparations to get to, so just be sure not to set anything aflame or maul anyone, and everyone'll do the same for you." He very deliberately turned his back on them and walked away.

"Looks like he's a lot more obnoxious on his own territory," Heather observed. "More confident, too, to let you go wherever we want."

Einfari snorted, watching the arrogant human go. As long as he held to his word and pitched in when the fighting began, she didn't care how rude he was. Besides, it was only to be expected. There were plenty of reasons Maour didn't consider himself a Viking, and all of them were walking around in the human nest surrounding them.

"I guess we should go find where we'll be staying," Maour suggested. "Then we can…"

'Go flying,' Einfari offered. 'I know we just finished a long trip, but I would rather be up in the air then down here.'

"So would I, but we have an opportunity here," Maour countered. "Every moment you spend down here is another blow to the mindset of every Viking who sees. We shouldn't just avoid them all the time. And there will be a lot of people here who aren't leaving with us, so this might be our only chance to influence any of them."

'The children and the elderly, as well as those caring for young?' Einfari asked.

"Exactly."

'Let's go find them, then,' she decided. She could do that; assuming there were no Vikings as overly defensive as her own brother, it wouldn't be dangerous at all.

"Be careful not to make any threatening moves," Heather warned her as she and Maour made their way between two wooden constructs, venturing into the depths of the human nest. "Don't bare your teeth, keep your claws sheathed, and don't smack anyone with a wing or tailfin unless you want to lose it. No touching without ample warning, either. They might take it as an attack if they're surprised."

'So basically, what I told you when I was introducing you to my family?' Einfari warbled in amusement.

"Yes, but in this case I'm not there to speak for you, and they wouldn't listen if I was," Heather fretted. "I wish I was there."

'I wish you were too,' Einfari admitted in a low voice. 'Maour is my friend, but I'd be more comfortable having you here.' She knew Heather better than she knew Maour, and that meant she could more easily anticipate what Heather would do and want, making everything that much easier.

"Hey, Hiccup!" a male human called out, stepping out in front of Maour.

"Not my name," Maour quickly responded. "I was wondering where you were, Thuggory."

"Getting everyone ready to go, of course," Thuggory replied. "You have the run of the place, right?"

"Yes. It was very generous of your father to grant us that," Maour said diplomatically.

"Whatever. You know, we're not on that boring island of peace and nonviolence now," Thuggory said conversationally.

"He is setting something up, that look is definitely one of scheming and failed subtlety," Heather warned.

Einfari had never dropped her guard, so she didn't physically react to that warning, but she was entirely ready to intervene. Hopefully Maour had it handled, but she would be backup if not.

"True, but I happen to prefer words to spears," Maour said calmly. "What of it?"

"I want to see you use that thing," Thuggory replied, pointing directly at Einfari.

Einfari glared at his hand and lifted her lip just high enough for him to see her teeth. He hastily withdrew the hand, though it was nowhere near her, and turned the motion into grasping the top of an object hanging from his waist.

"My weapon, or Einfari?" Maour asked. "Because I don't _use _her to do anything, if that's what you mean, and I won't be _asking _her to spar with anyone, for obvious reasons."

"Either," Thuggory clarified. "Mostly the weapon. You carry around a big polearm, but nobody has ever seen you use it. I want to test you."

"Not here, in the middle of your village, surely," Maour objected. "That's a good way to start a brawl."

"Always with the excuses," Thuggory said smugly. "How about the day after we set out, on the deck of a ship? I can have it cleared for a few minutes, and that's all it will take for me to beat you."

"Sounds like a plan," Maour replied confidently. "See you there."

"And _that_," Heather said smugly, "is the face of someone who has just been surprised and confused."

Einfari made a note of Thuggory's expression. A slightly slack jaw, widening of the face around the eyes, and uncomfortable shifting of the body. That was one expression explained. Only what felt like a thousand more to go. She couldn't even take what she knew of Heather or the other riders for reference; Heather's look of surprise and confusion was far less obvious.

"See you there," Thuggory replied, sauntering off.

"I knew that was coming the moment he stopped us," Maour admitted to Einfari. "It's no big deal. I'm a little out of practice, but not enough to lose to him without giving a good fight, and that's all I need to drive home that I'm _not _the Hiccup he remembers."

'Would this have happened for any other rider?' Einfari asked.

"Probably not," Maour admitted, "but they would have had to prove themselves in some way, or Thuggory and Mogadon would walk all over them. It's best I'm here, because I know I _can _prove myself. They have very low expectations when it comes to me."

'I see… Should we still go find the people you want to influence?' She would still rather fly away from here and relax in the safe, open sky, but the reasoning behind staying on the groundprobably hadn't changed.

"Yes, we should. Don't worry," he added as they continued walking, "we can go flying tonight."

* * *

Toothless was not sleeping deeply; the first exclamation of surprise woke him immediately. He knew what it meant, too. So, he got up, shook himself, and made his way over to the side-cavern his parents shared, and now tended to the eggs in-

Only to almost be run over by Shadow, who rushed out just as he was turning the corner. 'Clear a path,' Shadow barked, continuing onward. 'We're moving the eggs into the main chamber. It won't be long now.'

'Got it!' Toothless stepped out of the way, backing into the entrance to the side chamber he and Maour usually shared.

'Is it time?' Von asked, poking her head out further down along the passageway. She sounded excited, which perfectly matched how Toothless felt.

'Sounds like it,' Toothless confirmed with a smile.

Shadow returned, still moving hurriedly, and disappeared into the side-cavern for just a moment, before backing out exceedingly slowly, followed by Cloey.

Toothless watched as his father and mother carefully walked by, each with what looked like a very full mouth. Hints of eggshell could be seen between toothless gums, and those hints seemed whole, but Toothless knew better than to question his parents on that. If they said the eggs were cracking, they were cracking.

And if they were cracking, it was time to get Maour's attention. Toothless expanded Maour's sense of sight, entirely sure he was awake, as it was the middle of the day.

An image of Einfari carefully nuzzling a Viking child greeted him, and he laughed at the tentative look on Einfari's face. 'Maour, guess what time it is.'

"The eggs?" Maour whispered excitedly. Einfari perked up, glancing over at Maour.

'Yup. You know what to do.' Toothless didn't bother reminding his brother to get somewhere safe before entering a trance-like state to watch; even if Maour forgot about that, which was highly unlikely, Einfari would remind him.

"Okay everybody," Maour declared, looking around at what Toothless now noticed was a small crowd of adults, most of whom were holding on to younger children, "this is the last one. Einfari needs a break. We'll come back tomorrow."

'Thank you, Svartur eggs,' Einfari said vehemently, though her body language conveyed none of her relief as she held still while the child in front of her vigorously pet her ears. 'This one stinks.'

'It looks young enough that it might have soiled itself, so that's probably why,' Toothless remarked, knowing that Einfari wouldn't hear him.

"I'm not telling her that, Bud," Maour said under his breath. "This isn't fun for her as it is."

'Why not?' Toothless would have thought Einfari wouldn't mind Viking children. They were fun if one got into the right mindset.

"She's just not the type, I guess." Maour moved forward and gently led the Viking child away from Einfari. "Ready to go?"

'More than ready,' Einfari warbled. The moment Maour was secure, she leaped up and out of the village, flying forward and upward at a steep angle. 'I'm looking forward to gliding for the rest of today. Maour, do you need anything from the ground, or should I just go wherever I want now?'

"Go wherever," Maour replied eagerly. "We just had lunch, remember?"

'I remember stinky prey that was scorched and covered in plants that totally ruined the smell,' Einfari replied dryly. 'You had lunch. I risked my sense of taste to make our allies happy.'

Toothless winced in sympathy. He had yet to find anything Maour tried with food to be an improvement, and it sounded like these Vikings were far more elaborate with their pointless additions.

"You said it wasn't bad," Maour objected.

'I said it wasn't bad, not that it was good. It didn't even taste like food.'

'It doesn't matter,' Toothless interjected, remembering the far more important matter he was currently missing to listen to Einfari complain about human strangeness. 'Maour, I'm going to go watch now.'

"So am I," Maour agreed, focusing on all of Toothless's senses aside from taste. Toothless could see from Maour's eyes that he had slumped forward, lying in the saddle as Einfari glided. He would be as safe as anyone could be high in the sky without wings.

Toothless returned entirely to his own senses, aside from keeping hearing cracked open enough for Maour to talk to him, and quickly made his way to the main chamber. Cloey, Von, and Shadow were arrayed around the eggs in a circle, all lying down facing inward. There was a gap open between Shadow and Von, so he settled down there, copying them.

'They won't get too cold without one of us touching them, right?' he asked worriedly. The eggs were sitting out in the open, shaking every few moments but otherwise unchanged to his eyes. They didn't look like they were breaking open.

'Not right now,' Cloey purred. 'Not before they hatch. Listen, you can hear them scratching the inside of the shell, pushing and prodding.'

Toothless obligingly perked his ears and focused on the twin eggs in front of him. This close to them, he actually could hear what his mother described.

'Can you hear it, Maour?' Toothless asked.

"Yes, actually," Maour replied quietly.

'He is with us, right?' Cloey asked worriedly. 'I never liked letting him leave and miss this. I want him to see it all.'

'Yes, he is,' Toothless purred.

'Good,' Shadow purred. 'Now, during a hatching like this, it's fine if you talk, but try to avoid negative sounds. Anything unhappy or angry or worried, really, so no growls, no snarls, nothing like that. We don't want to scare them.'

'That is easy enough,' Toothless purred. 'How long will it take?'

'Depends on them,' Cloey murmured, her eyes fixed on the eggs. 'Von hatched quickly, while Kappi took so long I was worried something was wrong and contemplated breaking the shell to help him.'

A while passed in which there was no talking, only soft humming from Shadow and Cloey.

'Would you have?' Von asked quietly.

'Have what?' Shadow replied.

'Mom, would you have broken his shell to help him?' Von clarified.

'If it took much longer, yes.' Cloey nodded firmly. 'He was the only thing I had to remember my mate by. I would have done anything to keep him. But I don't think we'll have to intervene here. They're getting close already.'

Toothless focused on the eggs, trying to decide what made his mother think that. To his ears, the scratching was only a little more intense, only a little more persistent, and the shaking shells no more fragile in appearance-

No, there was a crack on the one to his left. A thin, spidery ravine was tracing its way down the uneven outer surface of the shell, slowly spreading even as he watched. Other jagged lines branched out from it as it went for a short time, and then the expansion stopped.

Moments later, the spreading began again, more rapidly this time. Toothless found himself purring loudly, encouraging the one inside to keep going. His eyes flicked over to the other egg long enough to confirm that it was progressing just as quickly, and then went right back to watching the one to his left. He could only focus on one at a time because he didn't want to miss anything while looking back and forth.

'Very soon, now,' Shadow purred. 'Remember, no negative sounds. Von, Kappi, you may be surprised by how they look when you first see them, but don't worry, it's normal.'

With a warning like that, Toothless was almost certain he was in for a shock. What could Shadow be referring to? Something strange enough about his new siblings that he might let out a whine or growl if he wasn't ready for it? That sounded bad.

"I wonder what he means by that," Maour said, his voice quiet even though there was no reason for it in his case. "Fishlegs never told anyone about the hatching, or really anything about the new Eldur. They must have wanted him to keep it all secret."

A loud, obvious cracking sound from both eggs cut off that train of thought. Toothless leaned forward, eyes wide, not wanting to miss an instant. He saw very clearly the hairline fractures multiplying and covering a part of the left egg facing the other one, and then a chunk of the surface bowed outward, splintering and giving way just above the midline in the egg.

A strangely grey limb poked feebly out of the small opening, recoiling almost immediately, only to be followed by more cracking lower down, and another hole. The egg gave way moments later, and a small flood of clear fluid sloshed out as it collapsed outward, stopping just short of Toothless's paws.

Toothless couldn't care less about the odd smell or the strange liquid; his eyes were fixed on the creature that had come out of the egg, the one sprawling in the middle of the mess it had created in breaking free.

Grey all over, small and feeble, with a massively oversized head devoid of protrusions aside from two stubby ears, Toothless would have had no trouble identifying this creature as a hatchling of his species if it weren't for one massive detail. The hatchling was totally missing its wings and tailfins, sporting a lumpy, misshapen back and whiplike tail with no protrusions on the end.

Thanks to being forewarned, Toothless was able to hold in a whine of confusion and sympathy, and instead looked over at the other egg, or at least where it had been. Another identically lacking hatchling lay there, its head moving feebly.

'They are totally normal,' Cloey announced proudly. 'The fins and wings start growing once they've spent a few days out in the open, and grow _fast _once they begin sprouting. Their color will come in as they shed their first set of scales.' She moved forward to collect the one to the right, while Shadow did the same for the one on the left.

Toothless's eyes followed the leftmost hatchling as they were conveyed to lie between Cloey's paws, and promptly licked clean of the clear fluid coating them. Cloey gently rolled the hatchling over to get its stomach and cleaned that too.

'She smells female,' Cloey announced, lowering her nose to her newest daughter's stomach to check. 'Shadow?'

'He's male,' Shadow replied, doing the same with the one he had taken. 'Lively, too. He's already trying to open his eyes.'

'So is she…' Cloey let her head rest lightly on her newest daughter and purred soothingly. The weakly thrashing hatchling stilled, and its small limbs gradually went limp. 'To no avail, of course.'

'Why not?' Von asked.

'It takes them a few nights to get to that, too,' Cloey explained. 'Other kinds of dragon come out of the egg fighting, or howling, or at least seeing, but our young are far slower to develop.'

'Healthy, though,' Shadow said proudly, gesturing to the slumbering male between his paws. 'There's absolutely nothing wrong with either of them despite their unusual circumstances.'

'Don't tell me you like having two at once,' Cloey joked, mock-glaring at her mate. 'The work is really only beginning, to say nothing of how bad just carrying their eggs together was.'

'The way I see it,' Shadow replied lightly, 'your body was just trying to make up for lost time. We're all caught up now.'

'More than caught up,' Cloey agreed, looking over at Toothless. 'Five children now.'

"Thank you, mom," Maour said quietly. Toothless repeated him word for word without needing to be asked; he wished his brother could have been present in person for this.

'When do they get names?' Von asked.

'Usually after their wings start growing out, though most of the time they're named after something related to the hatching,' Shadow supplied. 'But your mother and I have agreed that since we're going to be so heavily relying on all three of you to help us cope with the difficulties of raising two hatchlings at once, we want their names to be a family decision… And one made only once all of us are here to make it.'

'Hear that, Maour?' Toothless quipped. 'We're waiting on you.'

"Apparently. I hope that won't be a problem."

Once she heard Maour's objection, Cloey was quick to reassure him. 'Two months means you'll be just on time for when they would usually get names anyway. And you have several years before they grow out of deeply trusting whoever they spend time with, so there's no issue there.'

'And for now, it's mostly going to be them sleeping, eating, and soiling themselves at random,' Shadow added. 'If it sounds particularly fun or enjoyable, it isn't.'

'Can I hold one of them?' Von asked. 'You know, before they start doing that last thing.'

Cloey gestured to the female between her paws. 'Go ahead and savor the lack of that danger while you can.'

'You had better do that too, son,' Shadow offered, nodding down at the male hatchling he held.

Toothless awkwardly stepped over to him, avoiding the mess left by the eggs, and stopped right in front of him. 'I use my mouth to pick them up, right?'

'Yes, that's how.' Shadow gently clasped his gums around the midsection of the hatchling to demonstrate. 'If you're not comfortable trying that now, I can move and let you take my place instead.'

Toothless looked over at Von, who had already taken up a similar offer from Cloey, if her positioning was any indication. 'Let's do that.'

Moments later, Toothless had his new little brother securely held between his paws and chest. 'I'd better get used to this,' he said aloud. 'Right?'

'Oh, yes, you're going to be doing a lot of that,' Cloey said, stretching her wings and back legs. 'We all are, with two of them. We're going to go eat while you two hold them.'

'You are?' Toothless hadn't expected his parents to so quickly delegate caring for their new-hatched children.

'Well, usually only one of us would go eat so that we can bring up softened fish later when they get hungry, but there are two of them, and we don't want to give them less than they should get,' Cloey explained. 'We'll be quick.'

'Don't rush,' Von offered. 'This isn't bad at all. Much more fun than caring for an egg.'

'Again, wait until they start soiling themselves on a whim to make that comparison,' Shadow replied. 'But thank you.'

Toothless watched his parents leave the cavern and contemplated what it meant that there were two hatchlings. If even feeding them would have been a difficult task with only two caretakers, how complicated was it going to be with just the four of them? How much worse would it be if the coming war pulled some of them away to defend everything?

"I can't wait to be back," Maour said forlornly. "Your senses are great, don't get me wrong, but it's not like I'm actually there. I'm just watching."

'_I _can't wait for the war to be over and done with,' Toothless replied seriously. 'You're making sure that happens. It's worth it.' He didn't know what the future held, but it probably involved danger of some sort, and Maour was making sure that danger came nowhere near their family. He understood his brother's longing to be present and would switch places with him immediately if it were possible, but one of them had to be out there, and he was glad Maour was on the job.

* * *

'Go for the head,' Einfari advised, sitting primly by a coiled stack of something unimportant. She was under the impression that this was all just for show and posturing, meaning going for the kill was not the goal, but it would suit her fine if Maour ended it as soon as possible.

"I'd say go for between the legs," Heather advised, watching through Einfari's eyes with considerable interest. "I want to watch him squirm."

'Looking forward to seeing Maour best someone besides you?' Einfari teased, knowing Heather wouldn't take it the wrong way.

"Yes," Heather admitted frankly. "And I kind of want to see how Maour stacks up against a competent fighter in a fair match. He's somehow avoided that for as long as I've known him."

Einfari couldn't argue that. She was looking forward to this for the same reason. She wanted to see what Toothless's brother could do when fighting was not only the best option, it was the only option.

"Thanks for the advice, Einfari," Maour remarked, walking out into the rough circle marked out by the same sort of coiled brown vines Einfari was sitting by, weapon in hand. "But I'm trying to win, not put a hole in his skull."

"You talk big," Thuggory taunted, an overly large sword dangling loosely from his right hand. "I'm going to have fun with this."

"Speaking of talking big," Maour retorted, "where was all of this last time we met?"

"I had to hold myself back. No fighting there," Thuggory said eagerly. "First blood or death blow ends it. Best of three, but best of one if it's ended with a death blow, of course."

"Because nobody would survive for round two if we were fighting for real," Maour deadpanned. "Yes, of course."

Thuggory hefted his sword above his head and charge, a bulky mass of muscle and blade twice Maour's weight.

Maour, as calm as if he was walking along in the forest without a care in the world, stepped to the side just as Thuggory swung downward, swept his scythe around, countered Thuggory's off-balance attempt at a swipe, and drew a long line down the larger combatant's face, all in the space of three seconds.

'Too easy,' Einfari asserted. At least he had only drawn blood; everyone watching knew that he had caught Thuggory totally off-guard by doing… well, anything aside from cringing and trying to block the overpowered blow. Even for a dragon who didn't know much about humans, that was obvious.

"Just the first round," Thuggory grunted, swiping the bloody line across his cheek with the back of his arm and glaring murderously at Maour. "Ready whenever you are."

"Now, then," Maour said, advancing slowly, spinning his Scythe in seemingly random directions as he moved. Every step he took, his arms and his weapon moved faster.

Einfari watched Thuggory's face carefully, taking the opportunity to try and improve her knowledge of human facial expressions. 'That's worry, right?'

"What?" Heather asked, obviously not paying attention to the same thing Einfari was.

The ring of metal on metal drew Einfari's attention back to where it should be; the clash between Maour and Thuggory. This time, they didn't end it nearly so quickly, Maour's two blades flicking out only to be swatted away by the larger one wielded by Thuggory. Einfari didn't know enough to follow the fight blow by blow, but the impression she was getting was more than enough. Maour was winning, though not easily.

"Honestly," Heather murmured, "I thought he was better than this. Maour, I mean. He should have had Thuggory down by now."

Einfari began looking closer, spurred on by Heather's observation. Maour didn't seem to be moving consistently; his blocks were faster than his strikes, the latter seeming to almost match Thuggory's speed.

The ground beneath them all chose that moment to shift, reminding Einfari that they were sitting on a floating hunk of wood even as the ground tilted to one side. Maour stumbled and Thuggory pressed his advantage, forcing Maour back for a moment.

But then the rocking subsided and soon after, another line of blood appeared on Thuggory's hand, left there by the back end of one of the spikes as Maour withdrew it. Neither combatant noticed it for a long few moments, but Thuggory eventually looked down at his stinging hand and realized that he had lost, disengaging with a scowl.

"First to three," he called out. "Remember?"

"I remember best of three, but sure," Maour corrected idly. "Want to take a break first?"

"I'm sure you need one," Thuggory panted.

"That's why I offered," Maour agreed, walking out of the makeshift ring and sitting down in the pile of false vine beside Einfari.

'You are not fighting to your full potential,' Einfari said accusingly, voicing her suspicion. 'Why?'

"Close enough, actually, and I'm not used to fighting on ships," Maour admitted, resting his scythe across his lap and looking over at her. "I'm out of practice anyway. But even if I could, I wouldn't humiliate him. That would just make him want to challenge me over and over again until he won and regained his honor. I want to win, not destroy him."

'Smart,' Einfari purred, totally approving his plan now that she knew it. He had been right to come out here himself; he clearly knew how to handle the aggressive Meatheads, and how to do it in a way that prevented future conflict.

"Come on, I'm ready," Thuggory yelled, having returned to the ring. "Or are you too tired still?"

"Taunting when you're losing doesn't make you look good," Heather said snarkily. "At least Maour isn't letting him draw any blood to make it really look like they're closely matched. He has that much pride… And common sense, to not let that idiot injure him."

Einfari eyed the whirling blades and human directing them. 'Yes, he does.' Really, Maour was pretty great, as humans went. Smart, cunning if need be, considerate…

"Look, Thuggory almost got him," Heather deadpanned. "Or at least that's what Thuggory will brag later to bandage his wounded pride. I think this is funnier than crushing him would have been. This way, Thuggory will walk around thinking he's a match for Maour."

Einfari purred quietly, but her amusement did not stem from Heather's joke. She was pretty sure she knew where certain eventualities would lead, and she was pretty sure she didn't mind. Of course, there was the problem of neither Heather nor Maour seeming at all aware of the obvious implications of their situation, but that could wait. After the war, once things had settled down a little bit. A quick talk with Toothless would ensure they couldn't remain oblivious then.

After the war. They had to get through that first. Einfari wasn't about to tempt fate by bringing up possibilities that Heather and Maour seemed content to ignore when the coming conflict might render it all moot anyway.

* * *

'Kick forward,' Eldurhjarta instructed, watching closely.

Heather did as told, standing on her good leg and kicking out with the bad one. A slight twinge in her backside was all that came of it, though her kick was a little shaky.

'No pain?'

"None worth mentioning," Heather clarified. "I feel worse after exercising for five minutes."

'Good, good… You're sure you won't let me get a closer look?' Eldurhjarta asked hopefully. 'I can only get better at treating and diagnosing humans if I can see what I'm working with.'

"Not happening," Heather replied, keeping her voice polite. Dragon or not, healer or not, there was no way she was stripping naked like Eldurhjarta had tactlessly requested at the beginning of their meeting. She knew for a fact, if one hastily obtained from Einfari and by extension Maour, that none of the other humans on the island did anything like that when Eldurhjarta checked up on any injuries of theirs.

"I don't get why all of you are so self-conscious about that,' Eldurhjarta grumbled, flicking her tail in annoyance. "Not even Fishlegs will help me learn. He offered to do drawings for me, but that was it, and I can't learn much at all from those."

"It's a human thing," Heather offered. "We don't do that if it's not absolutely necessary." She decided not to mention that she just might have done it if Eldurhjarta had begun their meeting by acting as if it was totally normal; said tactic wouldn't work now, and she would feel bad for any new rider who came to Eldurhjarta in the future.

'Well, anyway, as far as I can tell you've healed nicely,' Eldurhjarta continued after a moment of silence. 'I can't smell sickness or infection, the wound has closed, and you can move normally. Thank you for coming to me about it.'

"Thank Einfari, she insisted," Heather replied, walking out of the main cavern and back into the Nótt section. It felt odd to have the healer thanking _her _for her time, given it was usually the other way around.

'Heather, are you covered?' Einfari asked politely. Too politely, and there was a hint of a warble in her voice.

"You could have warned me that she would ask that," Heather complained. "I almost considered it before thinking to have you ask Maour if it was normal. And even that was embarrassing, so I blame you for that too."

'I can't warn you about something I didn't know about,' Einfari replied more seriously. 'And I don't really get it either.'

"Imagine… You know what, forget it." Heather didn't feel like going down that path; Einfari didn't need to understand _everything_ about her.

'Oh, speaking of forgetting,' Einfari exclaimed, 'we had better not forget our promise. Go find Toothless.'

Heather stopped mid-step and spun on her heel, heading right back out into the main chamber of the cavern complex. "Good idea. I could use some action now that I _can _do anything interesting.' Skarpur wasn't meeting up with her until midnight anyway, so she had some spare time to burn.

Not much, though, so she was glad she knew exactly where to go to find a Svartur. Von was lying in plain view, physically blocking the way into the Svartur section of the cavern, and it was the work of a moment to walk across the open space and get her attention.

'Toothless? He's out running somewhere,' Von replied tiredly. 'Mom and dad are watching the hatchlings. I'm only out here because I can't stand the smell anymore.'

"What smell?" Heather asked curiously.

'You really don't want to know,' Einfari and Von both said in unison.

"Okay, so where do I find Toothless?" Heather asked. "And I need to get his tailfin, right?"

'The tailfin is in Maour's workshop, but a Svartur will have to get it because nobody else is allowed into our territory,' Von explained. 'And Toothless won't be back for a little while. How about I give him the message and have him meet you tomorrow night, dark and early?'

"Sounds like a plan," Heather agreed. She was looking forward to it, really. Learning Toothless's tailfin promised to be a challenge, and something to pass the time. Both were welcome at the moment.

* * *

'Okay, now tighten that strap there,' Toothless instructed, twisting around to get a good view of Heather fiddling with the connecting bits between his saddle and his tailfin. 'If it bends it's fine, just get it tight. That part is just for support.'

"Done," Heather reported, cinching the strap so hard her knuckles whitened. There was an extra layer of tension to all of this, knowing that she was responsible for the mechanics that would keep them from plummeting to their deaths in a few minutes. Sure, Maour was watching through Toothless's eyes to make sure she didn't make any mistakes, but it was still nerve-wracking.

'That's it,' Toothless said eagerly, prancing ahead a few steps, shaking his body at random. 'And everything feels secure.'

Heather covered her amused smirk with her hand as he turned back to look at her. What he had done had a legitimate purpose, but it looked absolutely hilarious too. He didn't need to know that, though; she hoped to see it every time they got ready to fly for these lessons.

'Okay, now get in the saddle… Set your boot in the pedal, putting the heel as far back as it will go,' Toothless continued, coaching her through all of the little things that differed between a normal saddle and his setup. 'Ignore the clicking, just keep pushing it back… There, it's ready. That's the fully closed position. Can you tell me the others?"

"Forward for open, tilt back for turning to the tailfin's side, don't tilt for other turns," Heather recited. "That's not all there is to it, is it?"

'No way, but we're just going for the very basics,' Toothless replied. 'Maour can match me move for move only because of the link, and we can't cut off communications with Maour and Einfari just to give you that advantage, not when we wouldn't be able to get them back.'

That, and Heather was pretty sure nobody involved wanted to break their links for any reason. She certainly didn't; she could remember what being totally alone felt like, and Einfari's constant presence in the back of her mind was a soothing reminder that she was never going to be that alone again.

'But this is more than enough for a fun glide off the mountaintop, followed by an easy loop around the island, and landing on the shore,' Toothless concluded. 'Nóttskarpur, are you ready?'

'Ready,' Nóttskarpur purred. She was there to make sure that no matter what happened, the fragile human component of Toothless's flight survived the attempt. Heather wasn't sure whether the prospect of being snatched from Toothless' saddle if things went awry should make her more or less nervous.

'Okay,' Toothless purred, walking up to the edge of the mountaintop, 'just flare the tailfin when you're ready, Heather.'

Heather braced herself and pushed her foot forward, spreading the tailfin into a gliding position. Toothless hopped forward, spreading his wings and swooping downward, before leveling out…

And that was all there was to it. Heather didn't even have to hold her foot down to keep the tailfin out; it was held open by the wind.

'I missed this,' Toothless purred, flapping lightly. 'Even gliding is amazing right now. You're doing perfectly, Heather.'

"Not much for me to do, really," Heather admitted. "But thanks."

'Oh, we can get into more complex stuff later,' Toothless promised, 'but for now this is more for my sake than for actual learning. Thanks for helping me.'

"What are friends for?" Heather asked rhetorically. "And I do want to see how much we can do without a link to make it easy. It might come in handy someday."

Toothless laughed at that. "Maour says he thinks he and I could do most of what we do without the link by now, so you and I can probably do quite a lot. I'm looking forward to it.'

Heather smiled at him; she was looking forward to it too. Nothing could replace Einfari, and being responsible for keeping them in the air made her nervous and probably always would, but this was fun. She liked having friends again, and between Einfari, Maour, and Toothless, she had plenty of them now. The Berserkers weren't taking anyone else from her, either. She would stop them no matter what.

* * *

Tuffnut dangled from the front of the lead vessel of the Rockbreaker fleet, bored out of his mind. Sure, the thrill of avoiding an unpleasant drop and unwanted bath was keeping him alert, but it just wasn't the same without the threat of someone prying his hands from the prow of the ship and dropping him in the moment he got distracted.

"Why is he doing that?" someone asked in a low voice.

"I don't know, just leave him be," the night watchman replied. "He paid me a Night Fury scale to keep people from asking questions, and that included me."

"What do you plan on doing with that scale?" The first man sounded intrigued. "And do you think he'd like two guards? I've always wondered whether they would make good spear tips, or maybe armor like the Chief says their leader wears. It'd be fun to experiment."

"Hands off, it's mine to use," the night watchman warned. "And I can't let you ask him, or he'll take it back. I'm supposed to _stop _people from asking questions. But yeah, it'll be a nice change of pace to do some experimental work."

Tuffnut sighed. Of course, out of all the tribes to be sent to, he had to be sent to the one where everyone acted like Gobber in the forge. A whole tribe of smiths, and somehow Maour _hadn't _ended up here? It was clearly a mistake on somebody's part, mainly whoever decided which rider and dragon pair went where. And unlike most mistakes, this one wasn't any fun.

'Still hanging in there?' Myrkurljós called out, swooping below Tuffnut and pulling out at the last moment. 'This is lap thirty-two.'

"Yeah… Come around again," Tuffnut decided. "I'm ready to drop."

'I thought you said you could do thirty-six at least.'

"I'm still bored, and this isn't helping."

"Do you think the dragon can really talk to him?" The night watchman wasn't speaking loudly, but he was audible to Tuffnut. "He seems crazy, but the Chief said the other ones did too…"

"It's hard to get anything from the Chief nowadays. I hope he moves on soon," the other man said worriedly. "We need a leader, not a man who smiths like he's trying to kill the metal and broods in his cabin. He got us into this."

Tuffnut saw Myrkurljós gliding in under him again, and let go with both hands, dropping onto Myrkurljós' back with a thump.

'You've gotten heavier,' Myrkurljós noted. 'But I guess there's no running around the island all night to keep you fit here.'

"And no angry pranked victims to be chased by," Tuffnut added sourly. "How long have we been here?" He tried not to keep track of the days as they went by; that only made everything feel slower.

'A week.'

Tuffnut collapsed in the saddle, utterly bored. "Take me up above the clouds and drop me," he requested. "I need to feel a thrill." He wasn't going to survive five more weeks of not pulling a single prank.

* * *

"You really don't know _anything _about Skrill?" Fishlegs asked incredulously.

'Watch it, he probably isn't too proud of his tribe having to be told who has been attacking for decades,' Myrkurheili warned. 'Starting fights is fine, but only if you mean to.'

"Not that I mean to imply that it's embarrassing for you to know nothing," Fishlegs stuttered, trying to correct his mistake before the seemingly mild-mannered Chieftain sitting across the table from him could challenge him to a duel over slighted honor or something equally violent. "It's totally understandable, really! They've hunted Night Furies for as long as anyone I know can remember, and none of the Night Furies I know can even tell me why. We're in the same boat."

'Nice save,' Myrkurheili purred sarcastically. 'If I wasn't busy gnawing at this wooden post, I'd applaud you.'

Fishlegs resisted the urge to look under the table and see if Myrkurheili was really doing that.

"Be that as it may be," Aldir responded, looking thoughtful, "the fact remains that we don't know anything. I would rather ask you the same question. What do you know of Skrill?"

"Not much," Fishlegs sighed, feeling far more relaxed now that the awkward moment had passed. Better yet, he was being asked for his knowledge, which was always fun. "They channel lightning, storing it in their bodies for later use, and can apparently survive being frozen solid in ice, if one believes the Viking legends."

"Any truth to that?"

"Short of something ridiculously improbable like the Berserkers finding a frozen Skrill and being stupid enough to break it free, there's no way to know," Fishlegs replied confidently. Then what he had said hit him, and he blanched.

"If Dagur had done that, he would never keep it quiet," Aldir reasoned.

'And if he did, we'll have some fun,' Myrkurheili asserted eagerly. 'You know, this wooden thing tastes really good.'

Fishlegs refused to fall for Myrkurheili's trick and focused on the worrying question at hand. "I guess there isn't anything we can do about it, so there's no point in worrying. Besides, we'll have more than enough Night Furies to take one down if it happens. It only takes one or two if there's no storm."

'And if there is a storm, it takes one with a lot of extra guts and glory on the side,' was Myrkurheili's contribution.

"Do you know anything about them?" Aldir pressed. "Anything we can use? In that case, or just on my island the next time one attacks."

"Well…" Fishlegs thought back to the dragon section of his notes, wishing he had brought it. He wouldn't even have had to take the Night Fury pages out; he had long since dedicated an entire set of notebooks to that specific species, given the veritable flood of information he had been inundated in for the last five years. "Unless you want to hear speculation about their motives in hunting Night Furies, nothing solid. Maour and Heather fought one a few months ago, but you would want to talk to one of them about that."

"How did they kill it?" Aldir asked eagerly.

"From what I heard it was an air battle, and Toothless dropped down on its back, driving it out of the sky. The fall did most of the work." Fishlegs was beginning to feel uneasy about where the conversation was going.

Aldir slumped back in his chair, seemingly disappointed. "Ah, well, of course it's not going to be easy," he remarked. "My village needs to defend itself, but if there's no easy answer, we'll just keep trying."

'Give him some tactical advice,' Myrkurheili suggested. 'You've got a strong mind. And ask him why parts of this wooden thing taste like burning prey smells."

"Not falling for it," Fishlegs muttered to himself. "Sir, if you could tell me what stops your people from fighting them like they would other dragons, maybe I can offer advice. I might not have an easy solution, but there might be a good way to approach the problem."

"We can't even _see _them, given nobody has ever mentioned seeing a dragon directing Thor's wrath," Aldir admitted. "And that means they're flying high, probably out of reach of our strongest bolas and arrows. If we could locate and strike at them, that would be enough."

"Two issues, sight and reach," Fishlegs summarized. "Getting up higher might help with both. I saw a tall mountain by your village…"

"Putting an outpost up there might help with seeing it," Aldir admitted. "But something tells me that won't be enough."

"At least it's a start," Fishlegs offered.

'Just put one of us there or have Maour come up with something to take them down,' Myrkurheili offered. 'Also, how mad will they be if I bite this off and keep it? It's great.'

"Have Maour make something…" Fishlegs mused. That actually wasn't a bad idea. Maour _had _made something capable of taking down a strike-class dragon, and one known for not being visible. The bola launcher fit the requirements perfectly.

"Did you think of something?" Aldir asked eagerly.

"Maybe," Fishlegs hedged. "But I'd need to talk to Maour about it, and I would have to do it in person." He knew well enough that Maour would be hesitant at best about building another bola launcher, and for good reasons. After the war, maybe. Right now, they had enough problems as things were.

'You never answered me, Fishlegs,' Myrkurheili persisted. 'I'm taking your silence as permission.'

Fishlegs ignored him, certain he was bluffing-

Then there was a loud crack, and the table wobbled.

"What was that?" Aldir grunted, pushing his chair back and looking under the table.

"I thought you were kidding!" Fishlegs exclaimed. "You can't just take a table leg!"

'Mine now, and I'm just getting started,' Myrkurheili asserted smugly, darting out from under the lopsided table, a rough wooden table leg stained with various foods held in his mouth. "I'll find a new place to claim for myself. Have fun explaining this!" He darted out of the room before Fishlegs could say anything else.

"I thought they weren't animals," Aldir said suspiciously, glaring at Fishlegs.

Fishlegs let his forehead fall to the wobbly table. He knew this was going to be a long and embarrassing explanation, and he wished he only had Myrkurheili to blame, but it was his fault for agreeing to go on this trip with a Myrkur in the first place. He couldn't wait to be home and back among people who didn't steal table legs for fun.

At that, at least there was one bright side. He and Myrkurheili hadn't been sent to travel with the entire _tribe _of people who stole for fun. It could be worse.

* * *

Ruffnut swung her fist forward, only to find herself tumbling after it, and cursed wildly as her side hit the wooden deck. A boot impacted her side, driving the wind out of her.

"Had enough?" Camicazi asked impishly, planting a foot on her back and leaning down.

Ruffnut grinned through the pain and pulled her leg up and back, just flexible enough to impact where she had guessed the back of Camicazi's knee was, buckling the leg holding her down just long enough to roll over-

And then the boot stamped down on her stomach, driving the wind out of her. Camicazi was still smiling smugly. "Saw that one coming."

Ruffnut held up both hands and performed the Thorston-spiting gesture she and Tuffnut had recently invented, knowing that Camicazi would have no idea what it meant.

"I think that means 'I yield' given you only use it when I win,' Camicazi guessed, stepping back and allowing Ruffnut to recover. "Are you telling me that I'm number one?"

"You know… Very well… That it's an insult," Ruffnut panted, sitting up despite feeling as if she could just lie there a while longer.

"But not what it means, so I get to pretend I don't know that," Camicazi replied smugly. Everything about the girl screamed 'smug'. Aside from that admittedly annoying quirk, she was all that Ruffnut had anticipated. That was one of the reasons Ruffnut never intended to tell her what the gesture meant; as long as Camicazi didn't know for sure, she wouldn't risk using it for fear of Ruffnut changing the meaning on her.

"Ready for round…" Ruffnut stood, trying to think back as she did. "Fourteen?" She hadn't been keeping count.

"Six," Camicazi supplied. "No, let's take a break."

"Below deck," Ruffnut clarified, not waiting for Camicazi to agree. The sun was bright and glaring, and she wasn't used to being up in the day more than once every few weeks. The constant light was actually getting to her.

"Sure," Camicazi agreed, following her down the hatch and ladder and closing it behind them. "Let's go see what your dragon is up to."

Ruffnut smirked at that. She was sure that it was going to be amusing, whatever it was. Earlier that morning, several younger women had asked about the dragon, assuming he was a female and asking how docile 'she' was. Since the Burglars had been ordered to never harm the dragon, and Myrkurvængur was conspicuously absent all day long and wasn't making a single peep from within, something entertaining and, by extension, humiliating for Myrkurvængur was going on.

Ruffnut pushed open the door to her cabin, eagerly anticipating some horribly girly activity with Myrkurvængur in the middle of it all, miserable but tolerating it for the sake of keeping their allies on their side.

'Oh, hey Ruffnut,' Myrkurvængur purred, glancing over in her direction, a look of bliss on his face. 'I wondered where you were.'

"What do we have here?" Camicazi asked, stepping into the cabin. "Hildegarde?"

The woman currently rubbing Myrkurvængur's back with a rag looked up from her work. "We figured her scales could use a good polishing, like we do with our swords, and Greta got the idea to sharpen her claws with a whetstone."

Ruffnut looked down at Myrkurvængur's paws in mild disbelief and noticed that his outstretched claws were indeed sharper than they had been before, and far more regular, smoothed down so that they all matched.

"It takes five of you to polish scales?" Camicazi asked, gesturing to the other women working on different parts of Myrkurvængur's back.

"You have to put a lot of effort into it to get a good finish, like with a rusted weapon," Hildegarde explained. "Not only does she obviously love it, it's a great test of arm strength."

'It's the best feeling in the world,' Myrkurvængur purred. 'Why do you and Tuffnut never do this for any of us?'

Ruffnut couldn't believe how not-embarrassing this was. It wasn't funny at all! Of course, she could fix that… "Once you're done," she suggested slyly, "maybe paint her claws and face like a Viking lady. Just to complete the look."

Hildegarde favored her with a flat stare. "That would be like defacing a beautiful weapon by intentionally blunting and staining it. We're sailing to war, not some stupid social event. If you want it done, do it yourself. We're doing this because we like the dragon, not because we work for you."

'Try it and I'll bite your hand off,' Myrkurvængur murmured agreeably, too content to be annoyed by her attempted sabotage. It wasn't clear who he was talking to, but Ruffnut assumed herself, as he obviously didn't mind the so-called warriors working him over at the moment.

"Good work, everyone," Camicazi announced loudly. "This is what I like to see, pitching in to help allies relax and prepare for battle. Carry on."

"Carry on," Ruffnut muttered disagreeably, slamming the door behind her. She hadn't tricked Myrkurvængur into pretending to be a girl just so he could be pampered and _boring_. They were only two weeks in; if she had to watch his smug face being massaged and 'prepared for battle' for the other six weeks, she was going to throw up.

"She's way more relaxed than Toothless," Camicazi observed conversationally, leading the way back up onto the deck, not even looking back at Ruffnut. "Maybe a little too trusting. She's lucky this is the ship with all the newest recruits. All of our older, dragon-hating fighters are on other ships."

"Lucky us," Ruffnut grumbled. "Do they do this for all of your allies?"

"Giving backrubs and trimming nails?" Camicazi laughed. "Not a chance. But it's not weird to do it for a dragon. I'd say they've taken a shine to her. Literally."

Ruffnut laughed along with Camicazi, but only because she didn't want to give her annoyance away. "Still. Would they be doing this if she was a boy?"

"She, or he in that scenario, is an adorable instrument of death and destruction with a tendency towards stealth and a reputation as extremely dangerous, something that intimidates Vikings," Camicazi extolled, climbing back up the ladder leading up onto the deck. "She's basically our perfect mascot. I don't think anyone would care either way. At this rate, your biggest problem is going to be keeping up with her need to be polished and sharpened after we part ways."

Which, of course, Myrkurvængur would be bragging to the other Myrkurs about, which in turn would mean pressure on her and Tuffnut from Blast and Boom to at least try and do the same just so that their little brother wouldn't be able to hold it over them, which in turn would probably lead to a lot of boring, back-breaking work on stupid scales for the foreseeable future…

Ruffnut held in a groan and quickly scaled the ladder. "Let's keep sparring," she suggested. She needed to hit something. Tuffnut had been right, being stuck with Myrkurvængur on this trip was terrible, but not for the reason she had expected. Not even revealing the lie would get it to stop, by Camicazi's logic, and Myrkurvængur _was _still probably bothered by letting them all think he was female, meaning he was going to complain about that when this was all over, and word would get to people who knew it wasn't needed.

She was still going to pay for her attempt at a prank, but she wasn't even getting any of the benefits! This trip stank like a ship full of rotten fish-

A fist struck her chin, sending her crashing to deck. "Round seven," Camicazi crowed smugly, "won in a single strike!"

Ruffnut groaned and let her head fall to the deck. This was going to be a _long _six weeks.

_**Author's Note: **_**…And this was a really long chapter. I actually had to cut out the last scene I had planned for this one, because this was long as it was. I'm not making the mistake of skipping things that shouldn't be skipped, but it's taking a surprisingly large amount of words and time to give all of this the attention it deserves, and this is just the **_**minimum **_**amount of coverage. I could probably have expanded the trip to be its own separate book, between the five different locations to cover, each with plenty of potential for expansion. But I think this is good enough; there **_**is **_**a war to get to at some point, after all…**

**Also, there's another version of Ruffnut's scene here, but I actually scrapped it immediately after writing it. Another thing that'll be seen in the Deleted Scenes entry at the end of this story… which is now over 24,000 words long. That'll be a big one.**


	32. Chapter 32

Heather pulled her arm back, sighted along the shaft of an arrow, and held the bow taut for the long moment it took for her to be sure she wasn't forgetting anything.

'Steady your body,' Skarpur advised. 'Moving while firing is not good for accuracy.'

Heather released the arrow, which shot out from her bow, arced through the air, and impaled the sand a few paces in front of the tree she had been aiming for. The head-sized piece of parchment pinned to the tree by a small knife was a distant, unreachable dream at the moment; she would have settled for hitting the tree at all.

'Better than last time,' Skarpur purred approvingly, walking behind Heather to stand off to the side of her. 'These have very little speed and a lot of drag, so you must aim higher, I think.'

"Sounds right," Heather agreed, drawing another arrow from the quiver on her back and readying it. This time, she aimed well above the parchment, even more so than before, and let go with little hesitation.

Skarpur winced as the arrow soared past the tree and into the underbrush, probably never to be seen again. 'Good range, but you fired before you were set.'

Heather nodded agreeably, having come to the same conclusion on her own. Her aim wasn't bad, but she had an annoyingly persistent habit of firing too quickly, letting go the moment she thought she was aiming in the right direction. It threw off far too many of her shots. That was not the first arrow she had lost.

A gust of wind blew across the shore, shifting Heather's hair around and blowing some of it into her face. She brushed it away with her free hand and waited for the wind to die down.

'This will also affect the path of the arrow,' Skarpur cautioned. 'I think. Our fire doesn't have that problem.'

"It definitely will," Heather agreed. "I should actually go check and see if we have any heavier arrows in the weapon stockpile." Heavier arrows wouldn't be so susceptible to being blown off-course and would do more damage. She was pretty sure her stolen longbow would be able to handle larger arrows.

'Maybe you should not,' Skarpur cautioned. 'It makes more sense to learn to work with the wind than to change weaponry so that it does not matter. You are doing this to strengthen weaknesses, right?'

"Yes…" Heather _almost _believed that was the real reason Skarpur objected, but something in the dragon's tone and demeanor told her otherwise. Maybe it was how quickly Skarpur had cautioned against it, not even thinking about it first, or maybe it was the slight narrowing of her eyes for the briefest of moments. "But that's not the real reason you don't want me switching arrow types."

Skarpur barked in surprise. 'I am impressed,' she said warmly. 'I really didn't expect to be called out on that. No, it is not the _only _reason.'

"So, what's the other one?" Heather asked, smiling despite herself. She couldn't take being deceived by Skarpur badly; this was just what Nótts did, and Skarpur hadn't even lied, just leaving out one of her motivations.

'See these?' Skarpur asked, nosing at the arrow dangling from Heather's free hand. 'They're thin, small. Lethal for humans, right?'

"If I get past their armor, yes."

'But not for our kind,' Skarpur explained, pawing at the arrow. 'This would hurt, draw blood, but not get anywhere near deep enough to really injure unless someone got prodigiously unlucky. Against us, it is a nonlethal weapon.'

"And larger arrows would be lethal for you," Heather realized. "You do know that the Berserkers are prepared to fight dragons, right? They'll be using bigger arrows, stronger bows, probably crossbows too."

'Yes, but that is not my point,' Skarpur replied. 'Togi and I approve of you learning this for a number of reasons. But if you switched to projectiles capable of killing us, it would make him nervous, and for good reason. You and Iknow that you just want to be able to ignore the wind, but that sounds very much like an excuse to ears accustomed to hearing what is not said.'

Heather considered that against the admittedly small advantages of changing her arrow type. "Good point," she admitted. "It's not worth that." Keeping the fragile but gradually solidifying trust between herself and Nóttleiðtogi was far more important. She figured she would have to learn to deal with the wind sooner or later anyway.

'I am glad you value my mate's peace of mind so highly,' Skarpur purred. 'It is heartwarming to watch him around you, to see him trying so hard and finally succeeding. Positively alluring, too.'

"Was that last bit really necessary?" Heather asked, casting Skarpur an embarrassed look. "I didn't need to know that."

'Probably not,' Skarpur readily admitted. 'My point is, you're doing great with him, and he with you. I'd say you only have one of us to go.'

"And I feel no closer than the day I met him," Heather sighed. She had long since given up hope of fixing Nóttreiði's acidic distrust, at least with the methods she had tried. He seemed downright uneasy around her and endeavored to avoid her as much as possible without making it obvious to his parents that he was shirking the tasks they had assigned him. Whatever the answer was, it wasn't what she was doing, or anything she could think of.

'Time will solve that,' Skarpur purred confidently.

"I wish I believed that," Heather replied, taking the arrow and drawing her arm back, aiming at the tree once more. She held her position for a long moment, and then shifted slightly to the right to account for the soft breeze blowing across the shore.

A loud thunk rewarded her patience, the shaft of the arrow quivering in the bark of the tree not far below the bottom of the parchment.

'See, you just need patience,' Skarpur warbled. 'Things are improving and will keep improving as long as you don't give up.'

Heather cast her a sideways glance. "That was way too obvious."

'Let me give my transparent life lessons,' Skarpur mock-whined. 'My children are too cynical to take that kind of thing seriously.'

"Whose fault is that?" Heather retorted, smiling all the while.

'Mine, of course, but that doesn't mean I can't guilt you with it,' Skarpur breezily replied, dropping her affected sadness in an instant. 'Fire again. I want to see you hit it twice in a row.'

"So do I," Heather agreed. Right now, she was aiming at helpless parchment, but eventually a lot more would be riding on each arrow, and she didn't want to let anyone down.

* * *

'My turn,' Von wearily announced, walking into the main chamber of their section of the caverns, looking as if she had just come _off _a hatchling-watching shift, not volunteered to take one.

Toothless was tired, mostly because the hatchlings had long since discovered their voices and begun complaining loudly whenever awake, which meant nobody was getting good, uninterrupted sleep, but he wasn't tired enough to just hand over the responsibility to her, looking like that. 'Did you get _any _rest?'

'Some,' Von replied shortly. 'Then I took a short patrol so that one of the Eldurs could take a break. They have to care for a hatchling too, you know, and things are tight all around. I can handle it.'

'Okay…' Hopefully their youngest brother and sister would sleep soundly for a while; he didn't doubt for a second that Von would doze for as long as they let her, and she needed it. They all did, really, but she looked worse than normal.

Toothless waited until Von was right next to him before standing and quickly backing out of the way, letting her settle down in his stead, a wing over a hatchling to either side of her. The faster and more seamless they made the transition, the more likely neither hatchling would be disturbed, and given they were blissfully asleep and thus silent at the moment, not disturbing them was vital.

'How long since their last meal?' Von inquired tiredly.

'Not too long. Mom and dad just fed them.' He had taken the first part of the night shift to give his parents a well-needed break. 'They'll be back soon, probably.'

'I hope so.' Von waved her tail at him. 'Go do something fun. I'm just tired. Watching them isn't hard, it's…'

'Tiring,' Toothless supplied knowingly. 'I get it. Good luck.'

'I'll need it,' Von grimaced. 'They were just fed.'

Toothless winced and quickly walked away, hoping that Von would have enough warning to take the hatchlings out to the entrance to the cavern, at least. The hardest part of raising them was shaping up to be dealing with their constant messes. His parents had long since resorted to using the moss that usually carpeted the cavern to more easily dispose of things, scraping it up and carrying it with their claws when it was soiled, but the moss didn't grow fast enough to keep up with that, so keeping their home livable was a messy affair.

But he didn't have to think about that; everybody else was on it for the moment. He didn't have to go flying patrols, either, because nobody wanted to try sending him and Heather out, even though they could handle normal flight fairly well. He had a couple of free hours to burn and was too restless to spend them asleep.

Out of habit, he checked in with Maour, but all he got was darkness unbroken by light or movement. Maour was asleep, which made total sense, given he was travelling with humans and it was the middle of the night. Still, that was one more occupation unavailable at the moment.

Toothless wandered out into the main chamber of the entire complex, idly looking up at the spire and ledges all along the vertical cavern. Nobody was there-

Scratch that, an Eldur was flying down. Eldurberg, looking harried. Toothless warbled at him as he approached. 'Eldurberg. What is it?'

Eldurberg dropped down to land right in front of him. 'I just got back from the long patrol,' he panted. 'There are three big ships heading our way. Passing by, but when they start sailing again in the morning, they'll be way too close for comfort.'

'You've told everyone, right?' Toothless asked urgently. 'I can't really help spread the word.'

'I have, mostly,' Eldurberg confirmed. 'Even Fishlegs knows. He's up late tonight. He wants to have a meeting with all the riders and the pack, which is why I'm talking to you.'

'That'll be hard to do right now,' Toothless murmured, thinking about just how many dragons were stuck in places they couldn't leave. The Svarturs and Eldurs had hatchlings to care for, everyone else was flying patrols…"

'Just a few dragons from each family, or one in your case,' Eldurberg clarified. 'All the patrols will be suspended while the ships pass anyway, just in case, and it'll be in the middle of the day, so the humans will be awake. Can you manage that?'

Toothless nodded. 'Yes, I can.' Getting permission from his parents to represent their family in official pack business wouldn't be hard, and the other families could send their representatives easily enough, so it would work. 'Where?'

'Here?' Eldurberg suggested, gesturing to the vertical cavern around them. 'We can just meet down here on the ground, though. We need to be able to talk easily.'

'I'll be there,' Toothless promised.

* * *

'So,' Toothless began, looking around at the scattered group lingering in the central cavern, 'are we all here? Eldurs?' He didn't know why Nóttleiðtogi was choosing to sit in a corner and observe instead of taking charge, but he could direct things if need be.

'I'm here, and my family says I can agree to anything the Nótts think is safe,' Eldurberg announced. 'Fishlegs is watching and listening, so he's here too, and Myrkurheili is with him. It might take us a while to get messages across, but still.'

'That's a problem for all of us,' Toothless agreed, not mentioning that both Einfari and Maour had direct connections present, and thus didn't have quite the issue the various traveling Myrkur dragons did. 'I'm here, speaking for my family, and Maour's here too.'

"For now. Einfari and I might have to step away if anyone tries to talk to us," Maour murmured. "I'm working on the saddle and obviously don't want to be disturbed, and Einfari is keeping watch, just listening in, so we should be fine even though we are out on deck."

Toothless nodded, having already seen Maour setting that up. 'Myrkurs?'

'We've got the connections,' Boom volunteered, not even looking up from the staring contest she and her brother had been locked in since Toothless had arrived. 'You know them, pretty much every Myrkur not here.'

'And we're here because there's nothing better to do,' Myrkurhryðjuverk added, nodding to Myrkureyðileggingu, who was trying futilely to break the concentration of either Blast or Boom by waving his tail between them.

'Great, so every Myrkur is here in some way,' Toothless concluded. 'Nótts?'

"I've got Einfari listening in," Heather volunteered.

'And I am here representing my family,' Nóttleiðtogi rumbled from his corner. 'Skarpur is with Joy and Nóttreiði, so if there is a big decision to be made, you will all have to wait until she can be asked for a decision. I trust that will not be a problem.'

"I like that he's careful, but I'm starting to think he shouldn't so heavily lean on his mate to make all the decisions out of fear," Maour commented. "I think he can handle it. He's made a lot of progress. But I'll wait until I'm back to tell him that."

'A month, right?' Toothless asked eagerly.

"About, yes. Now, what are we doing here?" Maour asked.

'Oh, right.' Toothless growled softly to gain everyone's attention. 'We're all gathered here to… Do what, exactly, Eldurberg?'

'Fishlegs and I think we should go around and get the situation from everyone in turn,' Eldurberg explained. 'And then talk about what we're going to be doing once everyone is at Mahelmetan. It's not actually that clear, and it feels like something we should at least think about before then.'

'A good idea,' Nóttleiðtogi hummed thoughtfully.

Toothless nodded in agreement. 'Okay. Fishlegs, what's your situation?'

Eldurberg hesitated for a very long moment, apparently listening to Fishlegs, before replying. 'He says the Waxears are surprisingly calm about everything. They're bringing eight fully-crewed warships and one of supplies. Everything is going well there. Aldir, the Chief, has been asking him about Skrill, and Myrkurheili has been trying to drive him crazy, but other than that everything is fine.'

'Sounds good,' Toothless said happily. 'Blast?'

'Tuffnut is dying of boredom, and my father is holding him down while it happens,' Blast reported with a sly grin. 'Apparently, their Chief is _still _in mourning, and everyone seems to consider making things out of metal the best possible conversation topic. But they've got three warships and a half-dozen floating armories, so we'll have a lot of fancy metal to outfit everyone with.'

"The Rockbreakers were never going to have much actual force to bring along," Maour added for Toothless's benefit. "Those armories are going to be their biggest contribution. But every little bit helps."

'Sounds good,' Toothless concluded.

'Tuffnut is suffering,' Blast objected. 'It's horrible. He's taken to trying to coach me when I pull pranks, and it's unbelievably annoying.'

'Agreed,' Boom growled. 'Because he's trying to get you to prank _me, _and we both know that never ends well for either of us. Ruffnut is doing fine, and apparently, judging by the incredibly smug look on my little brother's face, he's enjoying the trip. Ruffnut reports ten warships on the way.'

"They'll be lighter, less heavily reinforced, but fast and stealthy," Maour reasoned. "Good as scouts and sneak attackers, but not great in full-on combat. Want to give my side of things now?"

'Sure, I can do that. Okay, Maour says…' Toothless listened closely and repeated his brother word for word, not seeing any reason to summarize what was in itself already a summary. 'We managed to make a good impression on some of the Meatheads, but progress on that front has been slow since we set out. Thirteen warships and one supply, and they're bigger than the average Viking vessel. Mogadon and Thuggory were pretty belligerent at first, but they calmed down and seem to be mostly ignoring us now. To be fair, we're dead weight at the moment. They don't need us to sail to an island clearly marked on their map.'

'So that makes…' Eldurberg only hesitated for a brief moment before continuing. '… Thirty-four warships of varying types, two supply ships, and six armory ships, which I assume is pretty much just a supply ship. Thirty-four combat-ready ships in all.'

"Against Dagur's whole armada," Heather said quietly. "We're going to have to make up for that huge difference in forces. That'll take some doing. Einfari doesn't have anything to add. Apparently, it's been mostly quiet there since everyone settled into routine and got used to her presence."

'We have no information on the location of Dagur or Astrid,' Nóttleiðtogi rumbled, adding his own information, though Toothless hadn't thought he would have anything to add. 'That is our own fault, as we decided not to send scouts after them, thinking it too risky. Practically speaking, though, we could not have, not without sacrificing the defenses around our own island. We do not have enough dragons to watch ourselves, our allies, and our enemies.'

Toothless growled softly. 'That feels like a mistake,' he admitted. 'Once the fleets reach Mahelmetan, we will need to rearrange things so that we can afford to send someone to find Dagur and Astrid.' That was going to be a problem to talk over with Maour; they didn't actually know much about how to find him. He and Astrid were coming, but that did not actually help much with the vast tracts of ocean they could be arriving on, and their exact destination unknown.

Nóttleiðtogi nodded in agreement. 'Yes. And we will need at least one rider and dragon with the fleet at all times, even once they take Mahelmetan.'

"Wait, take?" Maour interrupted, albeit only in Toothless's own mind. "Toothless, ask him to clarify."

'It is an option,' Nóttleiðtogi rumbled in response once he had been asked. 'Or defend, though that has advantages and disadvantages. Is that not what we are here to discuss?'

'Yes, it is,' Toothless admitted. 'Let's get to it.' He was a little more worried about what their enemies were doing than the specifics of what their allies would do once they reached their destination, but only because one seemed very important, and the other a small thing. But they didn't know where Dagur and Astrid were, save for _not _directly approaching the Isle of Night, so it couldn't be helped.

* * *

"This place is a wreck," Dagur complained, stepping off the ship and onto the rotting, crooked pier. "I love it already!"

"Why are we stopping here?" Astrid asked impatiently, dropping down behind him, flanked by their guards who clambered over the side of the ship far less agilely.

"Every hunt needs a base of operations, and every armada a meeting point," Dagur explained, breaking out into a run halfway down the dock and skidding to a halt just before stepping onto the small, scraggly island it was attached to, staring down at the sand with disdain. "No matter how boring."

"Boring is good for a base of operations," Astrid asserted, walking at a steady pace despite his erratic movement. She did not fully believe they were alone here, and if there was a wild dragon around, she wanted to be the one to notice and kill it. Looking and listening for the possible wild dragon meant she had to move slowly.

"The Berserker who picked this place thought so," Dagur agreed. "His family regretted his lack of imagination. There's an island with an _active volcano _not a week's sailing from here, and yet he picked this place? Come on, he was practically asking to die. And he had the nerve to be proud about it!"

Astrid ignored his ranting, looking over the island in front of her instead. There were a few broken down wooden buildings, several of which looked like they had once been taverns, and many docks in similar disrepair lining the inside of the crescent-shaped island's deep bay. No sign of a dragon yet, but she could almost feel its presence in the air.

"But this is where that Berserker told everyone to come back to on occasion," Savage said carefully, "and we have to wait here if we want to get the armada back together. We can go to that more… interesting… island once we've done that, of course."

"I _know_, Savage," Dagur groaned. "Get the armada first. You keep reminding me. I have a wife to nag me, you know."

"Savage does the nagging," Astrid called out, only half listening to him at all. "Not me." She didn't nag; she ordered or threatened. With Dagur, it ended up being threats and persuasion because she couldn't order him around. Nagging was what weak people did when their subordinates ignored their orders.

"Yes, but the point stands," Dagur retorted petulantly. "I bet Heather wouldn't nag."

Savage shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably, shying away from Dagur. "A shame she wants you dead, sir," he said carefully.

"Eh, I'll handle the disappointment somehow," Dagur said absently, hefting his ax. "And who knows? Maybe she'll see the error of her ways and join us once we start destroying everything around her and killing everyone she knows... again."

Astrid stepped off the edge of the dock and immediately took a left, walking down the inside of the crescent-shaped shoreline, passing by the other docks as she moved. Her attention was on the interior of the island. If there was a dragon around, it would be there, but she didn't want to just run in. Sneaking up and cutting its wings off first would make the hunt all the more satisfying, because she could drag it out without the threat of the dragon just flying away.

"Anyway, how long until my men get here?" she heard Dagur asking in the distance. "Yes, I'm sure we want to base our operations in this part of the world, this is where all of my ships are. I'll worry about where we're supposed to be attacking once I have something to attack with!" A muffled splash followed; Dagur had either pushed Savage into the water or jumped in himself to cool off.

Astrid tuned them out; the hunt was afoot, and they were serving as good distractions, nothing more. She crept forward, toward one of the outlying buildings, her ax at the ready. No signs of reptiles, but that didn't matter. There _would _be a dragon; after almost two months on a ship with nothing scaly to kill, there would have to be. She needed something to kill.

The first derelict tavern yielded nothing, not so much as a single Terrible Terror, but she kept sneaking along. She was thorough, checking every single building with growing dissatisfaction before stealthily making her way into the scrubby, unimpressive wilderness beyond. Dragons could be anywhere.

Anywhere but the fleet as it traveled. She grimaced at the memory, though it had not seemed so intolerable in the moment. Dealing with Dagur was refreshingly direct, infuriatingly difficult, and on occasion boring to the extreme, depending on her mood, but she had been given no other choice, stuck on a Berserker warship with him. They were married, and of course she needed to make it seem official to keep the power she now held over his people, second only to him, so there was no avoiding him and traveling on another ship.

That, in turn, led to other… difficulties… But she was fairly certain nothing had come of any of it. It was all irrelevant, if invigorating, and she didn't care. She had endured those unbearable months, but she was hunting now, so all was well. Even if this was just the warmup for the real hunt coming soon…

* * *

Maour was woken in the middle of the night by a warm muzzle pushing him insistently. His hand reached up to pat said muzzle, letting the Night Fury know he was awake, and he lay there for a moment longer, trying to clear his head.

Then it hit him that being woken in the middle of the night was strange when he and Einfari were on a diurnal sleep schedule, as they had been for the past two months, and he sat bolt upright, his eyes opening to see Einfari's amused face.

'That felt patronizing,' she laughed. 'Do you do that to Toothless?'

"Only when he's trying to get me up early and won't leave me alone until I respond," Maour replied, looking around. The night crew was going about its duties as normal, and nobody important was on deck. 'Why did you wake me?'

'We just passed an island with a stone spire in the shape of a headless Viking,' Einfari said urgently. 'I got an idea, and Heather was up, of course. By luck, so was Fishlegs, and Tuffnut. Not Ruffnut, but still.'

"What am I missing?" Maour asked, shaking his head to try and clear his apparently forgetful mind. "I mean, I know the one, but we're still a week out from Mahelmetan."

'We are, and so is everyone else,' Einfari purred eagerly. 'Tuffnut says his fleet passed this island less than a day ago, and Fishlegs hasn't reached it yet, but he says that according to their maps and a lot of other things, he's pretty close too.'

Now Maour understood. "We're all coming together," he realized. It made sense; they were all heading for the same place, and certain routes were more well-travelled and thus less dangerous than others. The closer they got to their destination, the more likely they were to run into each other.

Or in this case, fly into each other. He grabbed the saddle he had been using as a makeshift pillow and held it up for her to see. "Want to go find them?"

'With how slow these ships move, I don't fear losing them, so yes,' Einfari purred, leaning over for him to sling the saddle across her back. 'I am looking forward to seeing any other Night Fury, even if it's a Myrkur.'

After two months, Maour was just as eager. Travelling with Einfari, Toothless in his mind, and Heather watching through Einfari was not lonely, but he was still eager for a change of pace and a solid indication that their trip was almost over. He couldn't wait to get home and see the hatchlings with his own eyes, help Toothless fly with his own foot, and do everything he should have been doing this entire time. They were running themselves to the bone, and he could help if he was there. More than they expected, if what he had been designing on the sly when Toothless wasn't looking panned out.

With that thought, he checked in on his brother's sense of sight, but Toothless was asleep. Given it was the middle of the night, that meant his brother was probably with the hatchlings, meaning they weren't bawling or wetting themselves or worse. That was great, though it was happening less and less as time went on.

As he thought, Maour cinched all of the various straps and buckles mostly by muscle memory, having done it so many times that it was basically automatic. Then his hands fumbled for a complicated mechanism that wasn't there on this particular saddle and dragon, and he snapped back into the present. He was done.

Einfari flapped her wings a few times, took a step forward, and shook herself. 'Feels good,' she reported.

"Looks good," Maour replied, before hopping on. "Got any specific direction we should go?"

"While you were putting the saddle on, Heather and I were discussing exactly that. We all, except Ruffnut because she's still not awake, agreed to meet above the island instead of bothering trying to find each others' fleets directly.'

"As long as they can find their way back, that's great," Maour agreed. He wasn't worried about that; ships really _did _move slowly compared to Night Furies, so it wouldn't be much different than returning to a stationary target as long as they didn't spend too long away.

"Oy, where are you two goin'?" one of the night crew called out rudely. "Chief said not to leave withou' tellin' him."

'We do not follow Mogadon's orders,' Einfari growled.

"We're going for a quick scouting flight," Maour lied glibly. "We'll be back sooner or later." He wasn't any happier than Einfari about Mogadon apparently spreading that requirement among his crew without so much as telling them, but that was par for the course with how Mogadon handled them in general; pretending like they didn't exist until they could be useful or did something he didn't like.

Then Einfari was off, flying up into the clear night sky, making a tight turn to angle them in the right direction. 'Maour,' she rumbled as she flew, 'what stops us from just flying home from here? We know exactly where we are, and where it is.'

"Nothing _stops _us," he replied, having already asked himself the same question a few days ago, and thus knowing the answer. "But it would look really bad, and we told them we'd be with them all the way there. We _could_, but it feels like skipping out on them. And it's just a week, now. We would only gain a few days anyway." He wanted to see this through; once the fleets were all at Mahelmetan, and the pack had sent someone out to keep tabs on them, someone to convey messages back and forth, he could go home.

And he didn't worry that said someone would be him or Toothless; Cloey would make sure they weren't selected for that duty, no matter what happened. Most likely, Heather would be tapped to go out to Mahelmetan, and Einfari to stay behind and form the other end of the connection. Past that…

Well, past that they would just have to see what the Chiefs wanted to do; there were plenty of Berserker ships around, and the smart thing would be to start whittling them down, but keeping the full extent of the link's capabilities mysterious meant the Chiefs were going to have to meet and discuss that in person.

Meeting in person was probably the better way of doing it anyway; talking second-hand with one person was hard enough. Adding four obstinate Vikings into the equation would probably make an actual discussion impossible.

The distinctive spire of the island they were meeting over soon rose in the distance, and Maour could make out three shapes circling in the distance, flying close together.

'Oh, I forgot to tell you,' Einfari added as she saw the other dragons and sped up to meet them, 'Ruffnut woke up. Turns out, the Bog Burglars actually stopped there for a day just yesterday, so she was pretty close too.'

"Great, we're all here." Maour leaned forward in the saddle for no particular reason.

'Hey, Einfari!' Myrkurvængur called out loudly. 'You're going to be so jealous!'

Einfari snorted in annoyance. 'And now I am no longer missing the company of my fellow Night Furies,' she said ruefully. 'That was fast. Myrkurs are only good in very small doses, I suppose.'

Maour laughed at that. "What about?" he called out once they fell into formation with the other riders and dragons, all of whom looked the same as they had when they all parted ways-

Aside from Myrkurvængur. There was something subtle about him. He looked different, not older or physically larger, but… Cleaner, maybe? Maour squinted, trying to figure out what it was.

"The Bog Burglars pampered him the whole way here," Ruffnut said sourly. "He's already bragged about it to everyone else."

'They polished my scales and sharpened my claws, and my teeth too!' Myrkurvængur barked happily, flashing his teeth, which didn't look noticeably different to Maour's eyes. 'I'm ready for battle!'

'Do you suppose they would do that for us if we asked?' Myrkurheili inquired, looking his nephew over. 'It sounds enjoyable, given you're bragging about it.'

'Sure, but they might only do it if you tell them-'

"That you're looking to fight at your best," Ruffnut interjected, tugging on one of Myrkurvængur's ears to silence him. "They like training and preparing more than any honest warrior should."

'And you have to tell them you're female,' Myrkurvængur continued, ignoring Ruffnut. 'So Einfari, you're good, but dad, Heili, you'll have to lie.'

Heili stared at Myrkurvængur for a moment before slowly smiling, an unnaturally wide grin creeping across his face. 'You mean to tell me,' he began slowly, 'that you had to pretend to be female to get this done?'

'Well, not this specifically, and it is not like they _checked _aside from looking at me and assuming,' Myrkurvængur replied, sounding as if something very unpleasant was dawning on him. 'And… Well, I kind of assumed they needed to think that… Ruffnut _told _me they would be mad with me if I wasn't…'

Maour cast an incredulous stare at Ruffnut. Even for a Myrkur or Thorston, that was a cruel move. He could see Tuffnut and Fishlegs also looking at her, while Myrkurljós cast her a very unfriendly glare.

"Hey, it backfired on me," Ruffnut protested, throwing her hands up. "He got pampered while I'm covered in bruises from training with Camicazi every day for two months. He came out ahead."

'But…' Myrkurvængur looked back at Ruffnut, his eyes narrowing. 'I didn't like them thinking that,' he growled. 'Even if it didn't change much. That was mean.'

'It _is _the Myrkur way,' Myrkurheili volunteered. 'Just to get her back in kind.'

'There are limits,' Myrkurljós growled, contradicting Myrkurheili almost immediately. 'Lying to allies? Forcing him to pretend for two months? A few _days_, maybe. Not the entire trip! Ruffnut, you went too far.'

"I might have stopped it after a few days if he had been miserable about it, but he just took it in stride and ignored the whole issue!" Ruffnut protested. "Bro, help me out here."

Tuffnut, who was wearing a grin as wide as Myrkurheili's, smiled even wider at that. "I went without a prank for two months, while you were pulling an over-the-top one," he said happily. "I approve, but I'm not taking your side. I didn't get to enjoy it, so I'm not going to share the massive lecture you're going to get, either."

Myrkurljós looked up at Tuffnut with narrowed eyes.

Tuffnut crossed his arms. "Also, bad Ruffnut. How could you force one of our own to pretend to be a girl for two whole months! A week, tops. I'm offended on the behalf of men everywhere." He looked down at Myrkurljós. "What?"

'What was it like, anyway?' Myrkurheili asked, flying closer to the brooding Myrkurvængur. 'Anything interesting to report?'

'They were humans and didn't know any better,' Myrkurvængur rumbled. 'It was exactly the same, I think.'

'You wouldn't be able to tell the difference,' Myrkurheili remarked. 'Neither would I. Maybe if we had a female tell us what the difference was…' He looked back at Einfari suggestively.

'Come closer, and I can make you just like one,' Einfari offered. 'You're almost there, I would only need to bite a few things off.'

Fishlegs cringed, pulling one of Myrkurheili's ears. "Come on, don't annoy a Nótt, or at least let me off first!"

'Can we just stop talking about this?' Myrkurvængur requested.

'Yes, for now,' Myrkurljós said decisively. 'You had a good trip?'

'Aside from that, yes.'

'Then you had more fun than we did,' Myrkurljós remarked. 'Tuffnut and I are both bored to tears. Come on, who wants to race around the island a few times?'

'You might have pent-up energy,' Myrkurheili rumbled. 'I don't. Go on without me.'

In moments, there were only two dragons circling slowly above the island, Myrkurljós and his son, along with their passengers, long gone.

'They were overreacting,' Myrkurheili asserted, flying a safe distance away from Einfari. 'Give them a week, and everyone will be laughing about it, even Myrkurvængur. This trip has got us all riled up and tense.'

"Maour, Einfari, any chance we can switch around for the last week?" Fishlegs asked hopefully.

'Not a chance,' Einfari immediately replied. 'You can wait.'

'Yes, I still have a week to break him,' Myrkurheili rumbled eagerly. 'Or to draw out his fighting side. I'm hoping he gets mad enough to attack me.'

"I'm not going to attack you!" Fishlegs protested. "No matter how annoying you are. Why do you think I will?"

'I don't, but it's fun to find out,' Myrkurheili replied. 'Oh, and Maour, you might have to give the humans we're traveling with something valuable. I've broken a few things.'

"You stole all four legs off of a table!" Fishlegs complained. "And then you chewed them to pieces, swallowed the pieces, and threw it all back up right in front of their Chief!"

'And that was just one week of work,' Myrkurheili agreed happily. "Don't worry, I beat all of them at a simple game they were playing later, just to prove I wasn't some stupid animal.'

"He roped me into translating and somehow won every game they played," Fishlegs added. "And the winnings still weren't enough to break even on all the things he broke or stole. Maour, the Waxears know he's a person, but they need to see a more _normal _dragon for a little while."

'In a week, they probably will,' Einfari said firmly. 'I am not changing places now, there's no point. Why did we never hear any of this before now, if he's been making your life miserable this whole time?'

'_Interesting_, not miserable,' Myrkurheili corrected.

"The same reason we never heard any complaints about Ruffnut's trick," Fishlegs said glumly. "I didn't want to talk about it. It's not like anyone can tell him to be less crazy."

'Very, very true.'

Fishlegs looked down at the dragon he was riding. 'I miss Berg.'

'I miss flying on my own,' Myrkurheili countered. 'But I think we both learned something from this.'

"Yeah, I learned to never bring a Myrkur anywhere," Fishlegs shot back. "What did _you _learn? How to torment a Viking?"

'That, and that I enjoy having a serious person to play off of,' Myrkurheili countered. 'Fix the timid nonviolence issue, and I'd be happy to go adventuring with you any time.'

"You think I would _want _to go anywhere with you after this?" Fishlegs asked incredulously.

'I'm only messing with you to try and draw out some claws, so yes, because if you actually demonstrate that you can use yours, I'll stop.' He shook his head, slapping Fishlegs' arms with his ears. 'Come on, pinch my ears. Do _something _violent! Anything at all!'

"Maour, Einfari, come on," Fishlegs pleaded.

Maour pointed down at Einfari, shrugging his shoulders, just as Einfari snarled loudly. 'No.'

'Good,' Myrkurheili replied. 'Now, Fishlegs, we're going to go join that race, so hold on.'

And then there were two once more. Maour didn't speak for a long moment, trying to process all of that and come up with an opinion on it.

'I am not so averse to the idea of switching in itself,' Einfari said aloud. 'But I think Myrkurheili has the right idea, so I refuse to do it. We're about to fly into a war, Fishlegs needs to learn to strike when necessary. And I won't feel sorry if Myrkurheili underestimates him and gets his tail kicked in when Fishlegs finally snaps. That stupid attempt at flirting was so awkward and badly done it hurt.'

"You assume he will snap." Maour wasn't sure it would happen. In his opinion, Myrkurheili was wasting his time. Fishlegs wasn't immersed in Viking culture now, and peer pressure had barely gotten him to raise his hammer for sparring and dragon training, let alone to actually try and hurt anyone. Now, surrounded by Eldurs who valued knowledge and speech, it wasn't going to happen.

'True. They need to spend more time together.' Einfari warbled loudly in amusement. 'And I would watch if I could. I'm even more thankful Toothless put us together now. It sounds like everyone was miserable aside from us. We were just bored.'

'Yeah, I'll thank him in person. Once we fly back from Mahelmetan, I guess." He didn't want to wait that long, but he would survive. His own impatience seemed like a small thing in the face of everything else going on, but it bothered him nonetheless.

Einfari looked back at him, her eyes calculating. 'Yes, you will just have to wait,' she agreed.

* * *

The busy port island of Mahelmetan was not a _large _port, despite how popular it was. Traders came once or twice a year, and while occasional raids were sent out to neighboring islands, nobody ever raided back, and visitors who were not there to trade were generally sparse. The people of Mahelmetan did their trading in bulk, not frequently.

So, when more than three dozen ships appeared on the horizon, the people of Mahelmetan were understandably surprised, and more than a little worried under the usual Viking bravado. Men and women rushed through the streets, hastily donning armor and bartering for weapons when they couldn't find their own fast enough. The island was preparing to be assaulted, everyone sure that a glorious but ultimately futile battle was upon them.

Heather walked the streets confidently, at least on the outside. On the inside, she couldn't help a flutter of fear, and not because of all the ruckus surrounding her. The last time she had walked the streets of a village, she had been on the run. She felt exposed, in danger, even though she knew she should be safe because they scouted and found no Berserker ships at the docks.

But her lingering fear was not rational and cared not at all for the safety she presumably enjoyed. She might have felt more secure to have a Night Fury shadowing her from the rooftops like in the story Maour had told her about the time he, Toothless and Cloey had been looking for the pack, but the village was far too busy and alert for that to work. Her ride and escort were hiding in the woods, far from her.

A large woman with two massive maces brushed past Heather, almost knocking her over. She flinched away, nearly running into another equally massive Viking.

'Careful, they're like falling boulders,' Einfari remarked.

Heather slipped into an alleyway just to get out of the chaos, and looked out at the rush. "They're going to feel really stupid soon."

'Yes, they are. Any luck finding their leaders?'

"No. We really don't know who the Chief is?" She couldn't believe that Maour had never found that basic information out; he had been making trips to Mahelmetan for over five years. If it was her, she would have found that out within the first year, at least.

'Apparently not. Look for some sort of gathering resistance. Maour says any Viking leader would be at the front of the line, wherever that is."

She knew that; it was obvious enough. Glorious battle was upon them, or so they thought, and no amount of tactical planning would change the outcome, not with such a huge disparity in force, so there was nothing to be gained by hanging back and coordinating. The leader would be by the docks, ready to die in the first charge.

Heather was not in the mood to find any of this funny, per se, but it was ironic. Here they all were, freaking out over the _smaller _side of the war that had just landed on their island. She slipped out of the alley and continued making her way to the docks, watching out for ambushes along the way.

Sure enough, there was a makeshift barricade forming just shy of the docks, barrels and crates being piled high between buildings, men and women setting up behind the makeshift defenses, reinforcing and strengthening weak points. Too little, too late, but it wasn't going to matter.

"Block that doorway!" a voice boomed out. Heather turned, trying to see the speaker. The tone of command was a promising sign.

"More barrels here, the crates are lighter, we need a solid wall!"

This time, Heather had caught a glimpse of the speaker. She moved closer, observing before acting. He was a large man, portly and unless she missed her guess, out of shape, with an eyepatch covering his left eye. He waved a plain, battle-worn sword around, pointing at what needed to be fixed, and spoke as if he was in charge.

Still, Heather waited until she heard someone address him as Chief Rotison before making her move. "Chief!" she called out loudly, walking right up to him.

"Aye, lass?" he drawled, looking her over. "Ye shouldn't be here, this is a killing ground and you're not a killer."

Heather frowned at that; she wasn't proud of it, not particularly, but she could claim at least two Berserkers as proof he was wrong in saying so. "Sir, they're not here to attack."

"What are you babbling on about, lass?" Rotison barked. "Look at the size o' that fleet!"

"All I'm saying is that if they _aren't _here to attack, it would be stupid to strike first," Heather clarified. "Set up a white flag and find out. It won't cost you anything." The fleet itself was not waving white flags of their own, but only because three of the four Chieftains had steadfastly refused to approach a weaker opponent by asking for peace. Bertha had been amiable to it, but the others didn't want her doing it because people might assume she spoke for all of them.

"That's not the Viking way," Rotison grumbled, "but it doesn't look like we're going to survive this anyway. And we need to buy time to get the fishing boats away… Good idea, lass."

The fishing boats, the ones Heather assumed would be full of the children and anyone too injured or frail to fight. They were being sent away to die or survive on the ocean instead of facing the uncertain mercies of an unknown invader…

Just like her and her friend, out fishing when the Berserkers attacked. Everyone here was fearing that very kind of atrocity. Her side had inflicted that fear, because the Chieftains had been unanimous in wanting to intimidate the leadership of Mahelmetan in order to have a better bargaining position…

Heather felt sick, but she didn't show it, nodding thankfully and disappearing into the crowd before Rotison could try and send her to the ships, and maybe send an escort or something with her. "Einfari, it's done. He's going to wave a white flag in order to buy his people time to get away, but he still fully expects a fight. I did my best."

'Got it. That's enough. Now go get somewhere with a good view. This is going to be a mostly human affair, and if the humans plan something stupid that could derail it, I want you in a position to spot it before it happens.'

Heather looked around, spotting several huts with lightly sloped rooftops that would make good, inconspicuous vantage points. "I probably won't see anything, but sure." The parts she had played in all of this were over for now. She just had to make sure to stay close to the docks in order to play her final role once it was called for.

* * *

The majority of the fleet cast anchor a way out from the island; it would be foolish to come close before the island had been rendered safe. Vikings didn't fear battle, but they did want to die facing actual enemies, not neutrals in the war who just didn't know they weren't under attack. Pointless slaughter wasn't all that glorious, or at least wasn't nearly as glorious as a proper fight.

But four ships did continue onward, each carrying a full detachment of Viking warriors, a Chieftain, and in one case, a man and a dragon.

Not in four cases, as one might expect. Maour and Einfari were continuing onward, but the other riders were remaining with the bulk of the combined fleet until things were decided. Fishlegs was going to go find his parents once things settled down on the island, but the twins and their rides were heading home once it was confirmed that they didn't need to hang around, and Maour would be doing the same with Einfari after she and Heather had a brief reunion.

And all of that was coming after the likely heated encounter that was about to happen. Einfari was standing tall on the deck, saddled and ready to go, and Maour was by her side. Mogadon and his son stood at the front of the ship, also ready.

"Heather came through," Maour sighed, seeing the white flag flapping wildly in the oncoming wind, hanging off of the impressively expansive makeshift fortifications blocking the docks off from the rest of the island.

'Of course. She also reports no obvious sneak attacks, and says that the Chieftain has been going around, but that people put _down _their weapons when he speaks to them. He's not planning anything more than trying to stall us, and maybe hearing us out,' Einfari purred proudly. 'She's mingling with the crowd near the front, now, ready when we call her out.'

"Good." It had been officially decided that Heather, Eldurfjall, and Einfari would be serving as the pack's eyes and ears on Mahelmetan, their official representatives, for the time being. Heather and Eldurfjall would be staying, and Einfari would be going back to provide a link to the Isle of Night. That was going to be common knowledge soon, assuming they got that far.

The anchor was cast off the ship, a massive, crudely-shaped piece of metalwork dropping into the water, and a gangplank lowered.

'Here we go,' Einfari hummed thoughtfully. 'You know, this feels different. We're showing ourselves to a village that hasn't already allied with us, and we don't plan on trying to get their support past what's needed.'

"Before was careful, targeted exposure, but this is a general reveal," Maour agreed. "It _is _different." He was still a little surprised the pack had agreed to it, even though in reality nothing new was being risked. They had already shown themselves to four villages, and no new information would be given. The Isle of Night would remain an unknown mystery implied to not be nearby, and the Night Furies a mysterious race with unknown capabilities and a fearsome reputation. But some of the mystique was already gone; Night Furies were no longer the dragons nobody had ever seen.

Maour was pretty sure that was a good thing. There were two types of safety; secrecy and acceptance. The former could not last forever, while the latter _could_. They were ever so slowly moving away from secrecy, and his existence, the existence of the riders, hinted toward acceptance someday. Their way of life was new, but it could spread. Would spread, in some form, eventually.

But that was all for later. Here, now, it was not spreading, and could not. Everything had to be done slowly, gradually, and today was not a day for working on that. This was not a time for ending the secrecy, not when their enemies would use any knowledge that fell into their grasp.

But today was a new thing. For the first time ever, as far as Maour or anyone he knew was aware of, a Night Fury set paw in a human village in full daylight, visible to all who looked, silently treading behind four intimidating Vikings and a strange man in black scale armor.

The reaction from the crowd waiting behind the barricades was exactly what Maour was coming to expect in cases like this. Eyes narrowed, or widened, and hands either dropped or tightened on weaponry. Faces grew ashen, and silence reigned.

'That is their Chief,' Einfari murmured, identifying the large, eye-patch-wearing man who stood in front of the barricades, holding the white flag on a spear in one hand and a circular shield in the other. A tentative offer of peace hanging from a weapon of war, next to a shield. Obvious symbolism, if impressive for a Viking to come up with on the fly.

"We appreciate the white flag," Mogadon boomed. "But we're not here to conquer, so it's not needed."

"Who," the Chief of Mahelmetan asked warily, "is we?"

'We don't really have a name for all of this,' Einfari said quietly. 'Whoops.'

Luckily, it seemed Bertha was on the case. "The alliance against the Berserkers and their insane leaders," she declared without missing a beat, easily taking over for Mogadon, who to his credit didn't break the show of unity to glare at her. "We're here because they're already around here, and we know their leaders are coming. We don't know how long we're staying, or what we'll be doing yet, but we plan to pay fair prices for everything we need, and to frequent your establishments in the meantime."

"What's the catch?" someone yelled out from the barricade.

"Well," Aldir volunteered, speaking neutrally, "obviously we'd like you to not resent our presence. And we _are _of taking up a good portion your docks, but we'll be rotating ships so that there are no more than six docked at any one time. And we won't be tolerating Berserkers, so you'll be losing out on whatever trade they provided."

"That'd be little to none," someone else volunteered, sounding far less bothered by everything. "You'll want food?"

"Food, weapons, other things," Sigvard of the Rockbreakers rumbled.

"I have more pressing concerns," the Chief of Mahelmetan pressed. "You're fighting the Berserker armada, and you're using my home as your base of operations. If they attack here, we may well be wiped out in the process. You're forcing us to die for your cause if necessary." He hefted the spear the white flag was hanging from. "And I've yet to hear an explanation as to the unnatural thing behind you four."

"There are five tribes here," Bertha said casually. "Bog Burglars, Meatheads, Rockbreakers, Waxears… And the Isle of Night."

"That would be us," Maour volunteered, stepping forward with Einfari at his back. "So there's your answer. And think of it this way. We'll be defending your island from Berserkers, and if you know anything about them or their leader, you'll realize that even if we weren't here, they'd probably show up looking to take what you have, so they'd be attacking regardless." All true; the smart first move for Dagur would be to conquer the hub of trade in the region and take it over, using it to supply the long-term needs of his armada… Assuming he meant to stay in the area.

"I'll want the full details," the Chief of Mahelmetan said forcefully, "but as you don't seem to be giving us much of a choice, I suppose the terms are generous enough." He waved a hand at the barricade. "Welcome to Mahelmetan. Enjoy your stay."

'I do not like the look in his eye,' Einfari hissed, though Maour knew her outward appearance would betray none of her unease. 'This is not as good as it sounds.'

"No, not at all," Maour whispered back. "He's not actually welcoming us; he's just saying that he'll listen." All of this had been meant for the people watching, a visible demonstration to convey that there would be no fight; the actual explanation and bargaining over terms would be far less pleasant and straightforward and would happen behind closed doors. Right now, all that had been decided was that there would be no fight in the immediate future.

Still, they were in, and better yet, he wasn't going to be the one sitting in on the negotiations and representing the Isle of Night. That would be Heather. Maour knew that it was a small relief, a momentary break at best, but he was still looking forward to going home. The trip was over, and Mahelmetan taken, in a way. One step closer to the end, whatever that would be.

_**Author's Note: **_**And thus, the war is finally beginning. I hope it lives up to the expectations I've been building this entire story. (It's certainly not going to be a one-battle-and-done thing; I didn't make that mistake in my first draft, and I certainly am not going to do it with the real thing.) Also, **_**wow**_**, I severely underestimated the length of this story in the first Author's note of this story. We're still **_**far **_**from done here; I'm doing every stage of this story justice, and that means things that before took one chapter (the trip back, for instance) now takes several, and plot points that I for some reason ignored (taking Mahelmetan for a base, and the obvious difficulties with that, both practical and moral, as a current example) are now expanded to fit the logical conclusions. My biggest fault in the last story was trying to skip interesting things, because what is a story if not interesting things following some sort of common thread? I'll not ignore the big things on that thread. But I also don't want to drag things out too much, which makes it even harder.**

**Anyway, enough rambling. Things are heating up, and there's a surprise in store for Maour in the immediate future. Can anyone guess what it is? It's a small logical leap, but I think it might be guessable.**


	33. Chapter 33

_**Author's Note: **_**Late but quality, that should be my motto for this story. Enjoy!**

The island of Mahelmetan was embroiled in uncertainty, its people staring at the fleet that had inexplicably come to do something other than kill and conquer them. Given they had been ready to lay down their lives in glorious combat only minutes ago, the uncertainty was understandable.

Heather was feeling uncertain too, for an entirely different reason. She was here because the pack wanted a human representative keeping an eye on the situation, and Maour couldn't do it. But nobody who lived here knew that. They just saw a black-haired woman following along behind the small procession of foreigner Chieftains and one dragon. Nobody stopped her; Maour glanced back at her and smiled.

She slipped into the tavern between Maour and Einfari, easily avoiding notice by the extremely distracted Chief Rotison, who was the one leading them into the tavern in the first place.

'Good to see you,' Einfari purred, nuzzling her back as they walked inside. 'Now quick, hide behind me. We still can do the big reveal.'

Heather smirked at that, but she crouched behind Einfari as her friend walked along the edge of the wall. They both stopped in front of a large window where stripes of sunlight filtered through without allowing for visibility on the street outside.

"Let's get to it," Rotison grunted irritably, claiming a table in the far corner. "I'll not be pushed around. We're coming to an arrangement or my people will make sure you get nothing from this island but ash, blood, death, and blunted weapons, even if we have to use our own bodies to accomplish that last one."

Mogadon scoffed at that, pulling back two chairs and sitting in both of them at once, still eliciting groans of strain from the wood beneath him. "At least you're not tryin' to appease us."

"No need for any of that, though," Aldir said calmly, taking his own seat across from Rotison. "We really did mean all of that out there. This island is the center of activity in the area, and a valuable prize for our enemy, not for us. We're honorable Vikings and have no quarrel with you or your people."

"I've actually worked with some of these people," Maour offered. He was leaning against a wall, doing a quite impressive job, to Heather's eyes, of appearing mysterious and intimidating despite his size. "I'd not see them hurt."

"You brought a dragon onto my island, _into a tavern_, and you expect me to listen to you?" Rotison scoffed. "I don't deal with madmen."

"Then you'd be against the Berserkers anyway," Bertha cut in. "They're led by a madman _and _a madwoman, now."

"I'd let them trade and then send them on their way like any other visiting ship," Rotison retorted. "Tell me what I really get from this aside from guaranteed business."

"Protection from a Berserker conquest," Aldir offered. "Or at least allies against that. It's likely to happen, as we said earlier. That, plus our patronage, should be enough to make this worthwhile."

"I'll want a treaty of some sort, affirming that you'll leave once… What?" Rotison asked, sounding almost curious. "Why are they out here? Why are you here?"

"Long story short," Maour offered, "they want all of our islands, and we want their armada gone. Their ships were here in the first place on a whim of the madman in charge, and nothing more. But they're here now, so we came here to destroy them."

"Away from your island by bringing the fight to mine," Rotison said sourly. "I want you all gone as soon as that's done. And I want it in writing that I'm not takin' your side in any of this. You don't get to conscript men, order me around, have my people fight for you, anything. We'll defend our island, no more."

"Add that you'll apprehend and turn over any Berserker spies you find, and we've got a good deal going," Maour said neutrally. "But I think it's time I go, so I should probably introduce you to the human component of my tribe's voice in all of this."

"Wha'?" Rotison asked.

"My island's representative, or representatives," Maour sighed. "Heather?"

'Showtime.' Einfari warbled loudly, an oddly cheerful sound in the tense atmosphere of the coopted tavern, and stepped back, her eyes trained on Heather, who stood confidently.

'Just act like you are supposed to be here, because you are,' Einfari offered, slinking around to lurk behind Heather, literally backing her up.

"Chief Rotison," Heather said respectfully, doing her best to act like she had every right to be where she was. It was easy to be confident when she had a Night Fury at her back, allies on all sides, and overwhelming force sympathetic to her side of things, but she _would _have to work with this man and his people, and closely at that. Being respectful now would pay off later.

"I remember you," Rotison said dangerously. "This was all a setup."

"All I did was ensure you did not waste your life against people who had no quarrel with you," Heather said firmly. "A small amount of deception ensured you and your people didn't act against your own best interests. I respect those interests, and my people do as well. That is why I am one half of our representatives on this island."

"I suppose that beast is the other half," Rotison replied angrily.

"No, she's going home," Heather said blithely. "She's been traveling a lot lately. See you later, Einfari."

'If we did not have the link I would slap you for thinking this was enough of a reunion,' Einfari complained dramatically. 'I will catch up with you after dark.'

Heather nodded, knowing that Einfari didn't need confirmation of what they had both planned earlier. They knew all of the details regarding who would be staying and leaving, which was more than she could say for Maour. Of course, he _thought _he knew all.

And on that note… "Maour, we have this," Heather continued. "Unless you want to stay. Einfari can take you to your ride home."

"I guess I'd better get going. It's a long trip from here," Maour said casually, as had been predetermined by the pack. Every opportunity would be taken to subtly imply that the Isle _wasn't _close to Mahelmetan. That was just basic safety.

"Now, abou' that treaty," Mogadon drawled, ignoring Maour as he and Einfari left the building, his attention entirely on Rotison.

Heather resisted the urge to just fall to the back of the room and lose herself in Einfari's senses as the dragon trotted away with Maour; the pack was counting on her to pay attention and ensure nothing went wrong with all of this, no matter how boring it was. Well, her and Eldurfjall, but he wasn't here yet. She would just have to get Einfari's account of how the surprise went after the fact.

* * *

'I just _love _being stared at in confusion and fear,' Einfari said scathingly, though there was just a hint of amusement undercutting her tone. 'Let's just fly to the forest's edge.'

"No argument here," Maour agreed, hopping into the saddle and holding on tightly as Einfari took off, just barely clearing the buildings to either side of her. Any narrower, and her wingspan would have made it impossible to take off from the street.

Maour put that thought aside to revisit later; at first glance, it seemed like a pretty effective strategy for preventing escape from a village, if one that would have to be coincidence, and he wanted to be sure he remembered to come up with a solution.

'No response?' Einfari mused as they glided above the village.

"Sorry, what?"

'I expected you to defend them, to say that they have never seen a peaceful dragon and of course would be wary, or something along those lines,' she clarified.

"If you know it, why would I bother reminding you?" Maour retorted amiably. He knew she wasn't actually questioning him with the intent of getting a serious answer; after two months, he could distinguish between shooting the breeze and serious conversation, though she made it hard by always sounding serious.

'Something about boundless optimism and wanting to defend the helpless from my sharp wit and sharp intellect,' Einfari purred. 'Though you were not defending the Meatheads by the second week of our trip, so maybe I should not have assumed so.'

"The moment they started making coarse jokes was the moment I stopped minding the insults you threw their way," Maour recalled. Familiarity really did breed contempt when it came to previously mortal enemies forced to travel together. Given none of the Meatheads had been able to hear Einfari's scathing retorts _anyway_, it wasn't like letting her go at them caused trouble, either.

Einfari swooped down toward the forest. 'I did not mind the jokes, really. I am no Eldur, but learning what humans consider crude and vulgar is interesting enough.'

"So long as you keep me out of that learning," Maour said vehemently. Luckily, Heather had fielded all of Einfari's questions, meaning he had not had to answer anything too embarrassing.

'No promises.' Einfari set down lightly at the edge of the forest, landing by three tree stumps. 'See you around, Maour.'

Maour dismounted and put a hand on her forehead. "You too, Einfari. You know, we could just fly back together. I can wait until nightfall."

Einfari snorted at him, shaking his hand off with a wide grin. 'I don't think _he _would like that...'

"He?"

Einfari hopped to the side, landing nimbly on the tree trunks an instant before something slammed into Maour from behind, something large and not at all gentle.

'Did you just offer to stay away for half a day?' Toothless asked disbelievingly as he sat on Maour and snorted in his hair.

"Can't… breathe…" Maour wheezed. Toothless wasn't actually pressing down all that hard, but Toothless didn't know that.

'Oh, sorry!' Toothless raised his paw and let Maour roll out from under it. 'I thought I was being gentle.'

"You were," Maour revealed, standing up and embracing his brother, wrapping his arms around Toothless's forehead. "How are you here already?"

'No "good to see you again" or "I missed you", just a question about logistics?' Toothless growled dramatically. 'Einfari has corrupted you!'

'I did no such thing,' Einfari hummed primly, hopping off of the stumps and heading into the forest. 'Corruption implies it is a bad change, and he was already more like my family anyway. We'll be challenging you for his allegiance as soon as we get back.' She paused just within sight, as if waiting for a response.

'You're joking,' Toothless called out, pulling away from Maour to stare at Einfari. 'Right?' His tail wrapped around Maour's legs, presumably holding him there just in case.

'Of course,' Einfari purred and shook her head. 'I'd never tell you beforepaw if I really meant it.' With a flick of her tail, she was gone, melting into the sparse undergrowth and copious shadows within the forest proper.

"I do still want to know how you got here," Maour said, though he had already guessed simply because there was only one plausible answer.

'Heather, of course,' Toothless replied, unwinding his tail and licking Maour on the arm. 'You taste like sea salt.'

"As opposed to land salt?" Maour asked, walking around and inspecting the false tailfin out of pure habit. "We're going home right away, I take it."

'No, we're going to fly until we're within sight of the island, and then we're going to do everything Heather can't help me do and then some,' Toothless said firmly. 'Cloey, Shadow and Von all say to fly until I'm ready to drop before coming back to the caverns.'

"They're okay without you taking your turn watching the hatchlings?" Maour certainly wouldn't object so long as that was the case. He was itching to actually contribute to the flight after two months of just idly sitting around while Einfari did all of the work, and the peaceful, simple flight home wasn't going to scratch that itch nearly enough.

'We set it up so that it's not my turn anyway,' Toothless revealed. 'We planned this out well in advance. Heather and I have been working on her side of the tailfin whenever you're asleep.'

"Keeping secrets?" Maour laughed, letting Toothless know he wasn't bothered, and slung himself into the saddle with practiced ease.

'Good ones.'

"Same here," Maour revealed. "While we're flying back I'll tell you about them, but only if you promise to keep them from the rest of the family until we've actually made them."

'Happy secrets can be kept,' Toothless said enthusiastically. 'Deal. Let's go!'

* * *

It was dawn again by the time Maour and Toothless actually entered the Svartur caverns; flying back from Mahelmetan took long enough as it was without the added time sink of making up for two months of lost time when it came to flying their hearts out.

With Maour's ankle sore from operating the pedal, and his stomach just barely settled, there was nothing between him and his family but a few steps and a-

"It's even worse in person," Maour said quietly, continuing forward despite the lingering smell that permeated the Svartur caverns. "Why is it worse in person? My nose isn't as good as yours."

'You haven't been breathing it for nights on end,' Toothless replied ruefully. 'I bet now is the first time you are smelling it for more than the time it takes to close out that sense."

"That'd be it, yeah." He decided to just breath through his mouth for the time being. Nothing was going to stop him from returning home, not even home smelling like a pungent mix of fish and what he might have called rotten milk if it didn't have a sulfurous stench mixed into it. He would just endure and hopefully grow numb to that.

'Maour!' Von crowed the moment they turned the first corner in the narrow passage leading deeper into the mountain, surging forward to lick him. He laughed and hugged her head, making sure to not accidentally breathe in through his nose as he did.

"Von. I missed you, sister."

'Not as much as we all missed you!' Von pulled back after only a brief moment, almost bouncing with anticipation. 'Toothless, can you-'

'Take over guarding here? You got it,' Toothless agreed, lying down in the passage behind Maour. 'See you later, brother. You'll want to sleep out here with me, anyway.'

"Definitely," Maour agreed, thinking of the stench he was trying to avoid even now. The fresh breeze against his back promised at least partial relief from that, which he supposed was one of the perks of being on guard duty.

'Come on, Mom is out flying but Dad is with them,' Von explained, heading toward the main cavern. 'You know what they look like, right? You've seen?'

"Once or twice. I wanted to wait and see them in person," Maour admitted. He felt like an imposter, watching them through Toothless's eyes, though he of course had not told his brother that.

'Well, you got back at a good time. They're spending less time making messes and more time looking around.' They turned a corner, and Von warbled softly. 'He's back, dad.'

'Welcome home,' Shadow said quietly, his wings extended low to either side of him, covering still surprisingly small lumps. 'They're just waking up,' he announced, slowly lifting both wings.

On either side of him, mostly grey hatchlings were stirring, their spindly tails and little ears twitching as they mewled, surprised by the withdrawal of cover.

The one on the right curled up into a tight little circle and clearly wanted to go back to sleep, but the one on the left opened his or her eyes, displaying a set of frosted green irises far lighter than any of the other Svarturs. Surprisingly wide and large black pupils slowly focused on Maour.

Maour moved slowly, remaining low to the ground and offering an arm for the hatchling to smell. He knew that he smelled like a Night Fury, regardless of what he looked like, and it seemed like a very good idea to let the hatchling in on that fact before it freaked out over his outward appearance… Though it didn't seem to mind him anyway.

The hatchling inhaled deeply, rubbing its nose along his armguard, and cheeped weakly. Then it crawled forward, bumping its nose on his knee.

That was all it took to wash Maour's irrational fears away; there was no fear, no distrust, no hesitation, not from…

"Which one is this?" Maour asked, petting the hatchling's grey-scaled neck and lumpy back. It trilled piercingly and did its best to lean in to the foreign sensation.

'That's the female,' Shadow replied. 'If a good name comes to mind, remember it. Once your mother gets back, we'll be deciding on names.'

"Right." Absolutely nothing was coming to mind on that front. She was so small and clumsy and adorable that he couldn't care less what she was called at the moment. He pulled her into his lap and began giving her a good scratching behind the ears, drawing out more high-pitched trills and warbles.

'See, absolutely no fear,' Shadow said softly. 'She would let you tickle the underside of her neck, or carry her around, or anything you wanted as long as she was not in an obstinate mood.' His voice was soft and kind, but the implications of what he was saying made Maour shudder.

'I don't remember being that trusting,' Von said quietly.

'It doesn't feel out of place or strange even in hindsight,' Shadow agreed. 'And you would not remember because I never did anything with you that would require total trust. Eating, sleeping, and growing does not.'

The little female hatchling was squirming under Maour's hands now, inching forward so that he was rubbing her lumpy back. He ran his fingers over the lumps, feeling what had to be wings forming below her grey scales and skin. "How long until these start showing?"

'The wings? They will break the skin any night now.'

Maour ran his fingers over the lumps again, and this time he noticed how tightly stretched the skin over them seemed to be, between the scales, several of which seemed loose. "Break?"

'The wings have to come out somehow,' Von supplied sagely. 'I remember that part. It itched so badly right before that I didn't even care about the pain.'

'Not for a few nights, though, so don't worry, you won't have wings bursting out if you scratch her back a little more,' Shadow supplied. 'It looks like she wants you to keep going.'

Maour only then noticed the restless hatchling rocking back and forth, rubbing her back on his motionless hand. He quickly corrected that, eliciting a triumphant squeal of delight.

'And you're never going to have problems keeping them entertained,' Von said confidently. 'I wish I could keep them that happy that easily.'

'Speaking of them, let's see how Maour does with both at once,' Shadow announced, turning on his stomach to usher the male hatchling, who had apparently been woken by his sister's noises, out in front of him. His eyes were a much darker green than his sister's, tinted with just the faintest hint of yellow, like new grass after Winter, and clearly focused on Maour.

Once again, even before smelling his Night Fury scent, the hatchling didn't seem to mind Maour's appearance, crawling right over with surprising speed and laboriously clambering up to lay across Maour's outstretched legs, right next to his sister.

Maour obligingly began scratching the male's back too, wondering how he had known what to do. Was he already so smart as to understand what was going on, or had he just heard his sister's loudly vocalized approval and decided to do whatever she did? Either seemed to be far more capable than a human baby of two months, but he wasn't exactly an expert on human children either, so he couldn't really be sure of anything.

'So, looks like Maour can start taking his turn watching them. Right?' Von sounded hopeful.

'We shall see,' Shadow replied cryptically. 'Certainly, he can help out. But I am not sure if he can keep them warm.'

Maour looked down at the hatchlings melting under his hands. They seemed warm enough, though the female was huddling next to her brother now, and shivering-

"Uh oh," Maour said worriedly. She hadn't been shivering a few seconds ago, but now it was pronounced enough that it was shaking her younger brother, who sqawked indignantly. "That doesn't seem like a good sign."

"Try holding her closer,' Shadow offered. 'She is too cold, you're right, but we should see whether you are warm enough to correct that.'

Maour obligingly gathered the now quaking female in his arms and hugged her close to his chest, but as he did he only became more worried and confused. She felt warmer than he was, but she was somehow too cold, and if _she _was warming _him, _then by extension he definitely wasn't doing her any good.

Sure enough, the shivering only got worse, and she began to whine pitifully and squirm with renewed purpose, trying to get out of his arms and find heat of any kind. At that point, Maour was more than convinced that he just wasn't hot enough. "Here, take them back," he said urgently. "It's not helping."

Shadow rose, took the single step needed to bring him to Maour, and carefully picked his daughter up with his toothless gums. She fell limp the moment he did, not resisting in the slightest. In moments, both hatchlings were arranged right next to Shadow's side, covered by a wing and huddled together.

'Some things simply cannot be done by some of us,' Shadow said diplomatically. 'Just as we cannot so easily delight them with nimble fingers, you cannot warm them like they need. Do not feel bad about it, you can contribute in other ways.'

"Yeah, I get that," Maour agreed, not feeling too depressed. He had expected as much, knowing just how warm Toothless or any Night Fury was as a general rule, so it wasn't a surprise. He was working on the problem, or would be soon.

'Maour!' Cloey burst around the corner leading toward the center of the mountain, her eyes locking onto him immediately. 'I thought I heard your voice.'

"No, that was Von doing her best impression," Maour joked, meeting her halfway and embracing her.

'I could _try _and mimic you,' Von mused, her voice cutting in from the side. 'It'd be hard to go that high-pitched, though.'

"I'm offended." Maour smiled widely at Von, Cloey, and everyone else. "So, I hear we're going to decide on names now?"

'Soon,' Cloey promised. 'First I want to catch up with my older son.'

'So do I,' Shadow agreed. 'Von, go call Kappi in. We can sit with our backs to the exits in here, and that should be good.'

* * *

'I am not sleeping here,' Eldurfjall announced flatly. 'Tell him that.'

"Eldurfjall objects," Heather said coldly, not bothering to be all that diplomatic. "He is neither a beast of burden nor an animal to be caged. This is not acceptable."

'It's a _dragon_,' Chief Rotison said stubbornly. 'We keep dragons in the storage caves. We're not gonna actually _do _anythin' to it.'

Heather put her hand on the rusty iron bars separating her and Eldurfjall from the dingy, stained little hole cut out of the side of the natural cliff. The sea air probably contributed to the rust, but she could only blame the rest on poor maintenance. Thankfully, there were no dragons languishing in the other, similar cells dotting the face of the cliff, or they would have a real problem. "Not acceptable," she repeated.

"Come on, how thick can you be?" Camicazi asked dismissively, seemingly far more occupied by leaning over the rickety railing behind them to stare at the rocks and surf below. "You don't stick allied leaders in cages no matter what they look like to you. If I claimed that a rock with a face painted on it was my ambassador, you wouldn't throw it into the ocean and consider that good diplomacy."

"It's a dragon," Rotison objected. "And why are you here?"

"Just making sure my friends from the Isle of Night don't feel lonely," Camicazi retorted. "Look, you put the other Chiefs in nice huts right in town. This place feels like nobody has used it in a decade anyway. You're either acting stupid or trying to make a statement, and one of those is a very dangerous thing to do right after signing a treaty."

Rotison scowled at her and palmed the hilt of his sword. "We used these cages just last week, girl. And I'm not keepin' a Night Fury in my village."

"Then just flat-out say you won't offer him hospitality," Heather replied angrily. "And explain to me where you want to lodge _me_, and why that will not suffice for him too. I seem to recall seeing his signature on that parchment." Eldurfjall had signed with a claw dipped in ink, something he apparently had practiced with Fishlegs, and it was a more legible signature than half of the human ones on the treaty.

"Ye can stay wit' one o' your own allies for all I care, girl," Rotison exclaimed. "You know where to go. I'll not be held responsible for what my people do if they find yer Night Fury lazin' about in the streets. That's all I got to say on the matter." He stomped off, heading up the sturdy plank ramp leading back toward the top of the cliff, leaving Heather, Eldurfjall, and Camicazi alone.

"He's an idiot," Camicazi remarked, shrugging her shoulders. "You can stay with us, in the hut he let us borrow or on the ship."

'I will sleep somewhere out of reach of all,' Eldurfjall asserted, glaring at the empty cell Rotison had offered him. 'Sleeping in the street. As if I'd be foolish enough to do that."

"I care more about something he said," Heather admitted. "He talked about using these cells just a week ago. If there are dragons here…"

Camicazi grinned maliciously. "These cells are pretty well hidden, if Maour didn't know about them. They blend right in with the cliff. Nobody seems to come down here, or if they do, it's just to store stuff. So, nobody would notice if a certain burglar snuck down every night and loosened the hinges to every single cell door. It's not like most trade goods can break loose."

"They'd know someone did it," Heather objected. "Suspicion would fall on me."

"Let it," was Camicazi's solution. "They can't touch you. The treaty didn't cover releasing innocent prisoners, if there are even any here, and we'll be holding any Berserkers we capture out on the ships. If Rotison accuses you of anything, you can just pretend that you didn't do anything, _and _that you thought they didn't keep any dragons there anyway. I bet you could pull that off."

"Yes, I could." Heather looked over the cliffside, or at least what she could see from where she stood, but she saw no signs of current prisoners. "There might not be anyone here. And if there is a dragon, they might attack you when you free them."

"So send this big guy along with me," Camicazi suggested, patting Eldurfjall's wing. He pulled it back and stared curiously at her. "He seems like he'd be a good getaway route."

'I can do that,' Eldurfjall agreed.

"I'll send both him and Einfari," Heather suggested, not wanting Eldurfjall to be alone with Camicazi. Eldurs, as a rule, seemed just a little naïve and far too curious about everything. She wanted a cynical dragon along with them, just in case. Other than that, it seemed like a good plan.

"Cool. Come on, let's go see the rest of this crummy rock. This place is boring."

'I do want to learn more about this place,' Eldurfjall added. 'Even if they are rude.'

"Get used to that," Heather advised. "We're not really here to make friends." Mahelmetan was a base and staging island, nothing more. She would be sure they didn't turn the native Vikings against them or treat them badly, but other than that, the island didn't really matter.

* * *

'We will see their wings any day now,' Cloey remarked, idly rubbing one of her paws across her youngest son's back, eliciting the occasional grumbling squeak of contentment. 'So this is the time we should give them names.' She was sitting with her tail to the far wall, facing the rest of them.

Shadow, who was laying on his side in front of the passage leading outside, nodded awkwardly. 'Yes. And you all know we want this to be a family decision.'

'That's going to be kind of weird,' Von admitted. 'I mean, for them. Having their names be chosen by their brothers and sister as well as their parents?' She shrugged her wings and repositioned herself, lying on her stomach in the opening that led further into the mountain.

'As long as we make the names good, they won't mind,' Toothless said knowingly. 'Maour didn't.' He nudged Maour, who was sitting against his side, one hand on the female hatchling and the other on the ground. She seemed to be asleep, or so close to it as to make no difference.

"As long as they're good," Maour agreed. His mind was half on one of his planned creations, and the amount of heat Toothless was putting out. Now that he had reason to notice it, he was realizing just how _hot_ his brother's underbelly was. It wasn't enough to burn or even overheat him, but it was strong enough to make him wonder if he might need to make some adjustments to his plans.

'How do we name them?' Von asked curiously. 'Do we just throw out words until something sticks? They don't exactly have much personality yet. Both of them eat, sleep, and soil themselves, and love Maour's scratches. That isn't much to go on.'

'It varies.' Shadow warbled contently, sounding as if there was nowhere he would rather be. 'Sometimes, they _do _do something distinctive. Or sometimes it is after the circumstances surrounding their hatching.'

'Like Myrkursprenging and Myrkursprengja, both hatched during thunderstorms. Blast and Boom.' Toothless nodded in understanding. 'So… Dual and Duo? Because they came together, two of a kind at once?'

'That's not bad,' Cloey praised. 'But I don't know if we should name them like two parts of a whole. What if they end up wanting to go their own ways in life? It would be a burden to have a name that means one is not complete without the other.'

'I didn't think of that,' Toothless admitted, sounding impressed.

'It is still a good option,' Shadow reassured him. 'I think that would sound good, too.'

"There's another thing," Maour added. "Are we giving them Fury names, like mine being Svarturflugmaður? Because I don't know what Dual and Duo would sound like in that sort of naming scheme." He had never really looked into the seemingly separate language the Furies only used for names; Fishlegs could probably tell him more, but it so rarely affected his day-to-day life that it had avoided notice.

'Most names sound good in the end,' Cloey answered. 'Generally, we come up with the meaning first, like Kappi did with his suggestion, and then if we pick that one, we translate it.'

'And we have not picked that yet,' Von said quickly. 'How about Frost and Spring? You know, for their eyes.'

'Frost for the female with white streaks, and Spring for the male with yellow streaks?' Shadow purred appreciatively. 'That could work. It is distinctive that neither is some shade of pure green. Pure chance, but that makes them unique in appearance, at least among us.'

'But being named for their eyes when their siblings have names like hope, warrior, and flyer?' Toothless countered. 'That kind of feels like saying their looks are all they have.'

Maour nodded in agreement. They might be overthinking a simple choice, but he knew from experience that names were not something to be taken lightly. A bad name was not fun to live with, and he didn't want to be responsible for giving _anyone _a degrading or stupid name… Unintentionally, anyway.

'So we should name them for occupations, things they do or will do? That will be hard to do accurately, unless one of us can see the future,' Shadow joked.

"Well, I mean, we can guess," Maour replied seriously. "They'll be Svarturs, and they'll be living in this pack. They'll grow up in a happy family, raised to be good people who do what is right, and in this day and age, that means…" He trailed, unsure of what to say and hoping somebody else would finish the line of thought.

Then Von surprised him by continuing without even a pause. 'They'll be protectors, guardians of the pack. We're going to fight to protect them soon, and they'll probably have to fight to protect all of us at some point. The world is a dangerous place.'

'Of course, everyone protects the pack,' Shadow mused. 'Protector and Guardian?'

'I like that,' Cloey said firmly. 'Hope, Warrior, Flyer, Protector, and Guardian. They fit the theme.'

"All powerful, ambitious names," Maour added. "Even mine, because what's more ambitious than calling a human 'Flyer?' I think that's perfect."

'And they are not violent names, either,' Cloey mused. 'Not like calling one of them 'Rage'. I still do not know what Skarpur was thinking with that one.'

'Nóttreiði,' Toothless helpfully supplied in a low hum. 'That's what his name means. Night Rage.'

"That's unfortunate." Maour wondered whether Skarpur and Togi regretted giving him that name _now_, after his anger had so negatively impacted his life.

'It sounds like we all prefer Protector and Guardian,' Shadow announced. 'Do we want to keep tossing out ideas, or is that one the best we can do?'

'Let's all just call out every good possibility we can think of for a little while,' Von suggested. 'If none of them are good enough, then we can stick with these.'

'Okay,' Toothless rumbled. 'Maour, pin her ears down, would you? I don't want to wake her.'

Maour did his best to hold down their little sister's ears without pressing too hard on her head. He wasn't sure how effective that would be, given everyone present spoke mentally, but he did it anyway; his own voice was both mental and audible, and everyone else tended to bark or growl to emphasize their words, so it would at least help.

'Rough and Tumble,' Toothless began. 'Wait, no, Rough sounds too much like Ruffnut.'

'Rock and Roll,' Von suggested. 'They like to roll around on rocks sometimes.'

'Rock is Eldurberg's name,' Shadow said with a laughing warble. 'We're not copying the Eldurs. What about Stench and Fumes?'

'Take this seriously, Skuggi,' Cloey laughed. 'Beauty and Brains- No, wait, that's Myrkurheili.'

"Ebony and Obsidian," Maour suggested, giving his only alternative. Both were extremely generic as names for Night Furies went, referencing nothing but the color the entire species shared, but at least neither were taken as far as he knew.

'Those aren't half bad,' Toothless rumbled. 'Thing One and Thing Two.'

'Over my dead body,' Cloey retorted. 'No child of mine will have such a silly name.'

'Just trying to make Maour's look even better by contrast,' Toothless explained, grinning toothlessly at his mother.

"My suggestions or the name I had when I met you?" Maour asked skeptically.

'Either works. What's the worst name you could come up with?' Toothless asked curiously.

"It'd have to be insulting, demeaning, and overall unfit for anyone to walk around with…" Maour mused. "Probably some cruel play on words, something so mean-spirited that it's clearly not meant as a joke, like 'Nuffink' or 'Wort Les.'"

'Come on, you two,' Von complained. 'Nobody in their right mind would call a hatchling any of those. Are we really that out of ideas?'

"Hey, he was asking for my _worst _suggestions," Maour said defensively. "But yes, I have nothing else in the way of serious suggestions."

'Neither do I,' Cloey admitted. 'And it looks like both of them are asleep now, so keep your voices down.' She nodded at the now slumbering hatchling between her paws.

"They do sleep a lot," Maour observed. "So, it sounds like Guardian and Protector are our best options. Which goes to which hatchling, and what do they sound like in your language?"

'To answer your last question first, I think Protector would be Verndari,' Shadow said tentatively.

'Yes, so Svarturverndari for the full name,' Cloey purred. 'I like the sound of that. Of course, it's long, but that's what short names are for. The other would be Svarturforráðamaður, which is even longer.'

'Svarturforráðamaður,' Toothless repeated slowly. 'And Svarturverndari. Well, as long as we can use good, short names for them, I like those too.'

'Oh, that's easy,' Von purred. 'Verndari can just be Vern, and the other can be Fora. Fora and Vern.'

"Fora sounds more like a girl's name, so I guess we know which goes to which," Maour suggested, looking down at the female under his hand. "Fora. Svarturforráðamaður."

'Which makes you,' Cloey said happily, looking down at the male hatchling, 'Svarturverndari, or Vern for short once you know your full name.'

'Yes, everyone be sure to only use their long names until they respond to them,' Shadow warned. 'Then you can start with the short names. It's just the principle of the thing, not vitally important, but I'd like it if you tried to do it that way.'

"No problem." Maour wouldn't mind even that; he was more than happy to say long, complicated names for as long as needed. His new siblings had good names. That was all that mattered.

* * *

"…So Camicazi handled it," Heather concluded, glad to be done with her report. For a mostly boring week, there were certainly a lot of little details to go over once it came time to telling the pack about it all.

"Did she find any dragons?" Fishlegs asked worriedly. "And where would they go? There aren't any good, uninhabited islands nearby." He was technically speaking to Einfari, given she was the one sitting on the spire in the middle of the vertical cavern on the Isle of Night, but only because Heather and Eldurfjall couldn't be spared for the time it would take to fly to the Isle and back to give their weekly report.

"No dragons," Heather answered, hearing her words repeated by Einfari moments later. "They really only use those cells for storage on occasion, even if they were obviously made to hold dragons."

"Still," Maour said seriously, "I'm embarrassed I didn't know about them, and they worry me. I'd rather Mahelmetan _not _have anywhere to keep a dragon locked up."

'Actually,' Skarpur called out, 'it is safer if they do. That way, if they turn on one of us, it's less likely they'll kill immediately. If they know they can't keep us captive, they won't hesitate to kill.'

'A good point,' Einfari purred. 'Any other questions for Heather or Eldurfjall?'

"Yeah," Tuffnut called out. "What's the body count? How many Berserker ships have you guys taken down? Don't be greedy, leave some for us."

"Two," Heather replied, giving a serious answer even though the question was delivered in the twins' usual brand of irreverence. "Small vessels. We're going to draw attention soon, though. This is a major trading hub, after all. They're going to notice when nobody comes back."

That was her biggest concern. Rotison and his people were minor annoyances too cowed by the overwhelming force and strangeness to make much trouble yet, and things looked fine on the purely logistical front; Mahelmetan was more than capable of supplying the combined fleet as long as the traders continued to arrive on time. The Berserkers were the imminent threat, not angry mobs or impending starvation.

'Eldurfjall,' Skarpur called out. 'Do you want us to send a replacement, or are you willing to stay another week?'

Once Heather had relayed the question, Eldurfjall nodded decisively. 'Send a replacement. This is interesting, but I miss my family and hatchling. Send someone who does not have a new child to care for to replace me. It is inefficient to swap out dragons every week.'

'Got it. We'll let you know who's coming once we decide,' Skarpur replied. 'Keep up the good work, Heather. We can't exactly send a replacement for you right now.'

"I don't want you to," Heather agreed, knowing that the only halfway-decent option was Maour, who had other responsibilities. "No worries there." She was doing important work out here. The war was already ramping up, and Mahelmetan needed at least one Nótt to keep an eye on it.

_**Author's Note: **_**Hey, a more normal chapter length this time! I've realized that one contributing factor to the slowdown of this story might be that my average chapter length has doubled since I wrote the first draft; in rewriting, it takes longer simply because there are **_**more words **_**per chapter. It's certainly not the main factor, but still. In any case, this length is close to what I **_**want **_**the normal for this story to be. 10,000+ word chapters are best used sparingly.**

**On another note, There's a little reference to another, far more famous story in this fandom somewhere in this chapter, and that reference was **_**in itself **_**a reference in the original story. I'm just adding a layer of inception. Can anyone find it?**

**Also, I didn't know until typing the final draft of this out that Word apparently autocorrects 'Fora' to 'For a'. That was mildly inconvenient… But still less inconvenient than typing her full name out. These two got their short names right off the bat for a very good reason, and that reason was convenience.**


	34. Chapter 34

Maour and Toothless glided high above the ocean within sight of the shore; the long-range patrols had just returned and reported no ships, so the skies around the island were safe for a while.

"Once we're done here we should finish up in the forge," Maour said quietly as they flew. "I feel terrible about taking any time off before what we are making is done." Even if Cloey, Shadow, and Von had all told them to take this close-range patrol shift as a break, he still felt bad about not being able to take shifts with the hatchlings on his own, too; as it was, he wasn't doing nearly enough to feel like he was contributing.

'This is not time off, though,' Toothless objected. He sounded tired, but every Svartur did these days, and Maour knew better than to suggest that he try and find time to sleep more. Tired and wanting to sleep were two very different things. 'We are not even _just _patrolling. See, there it is.'

"Right where the twins said it would be," Maour marveled. "But where are they?"

'Below the deck, maybe?' Toothless offered. 'There is nobody on it, so we know it's the one they took out while we were away.'

"We _think_ it's ours." After hearing exactly how Nóttreiði had been ambushed in attacking a lone Berserker ship, Maour was wary of making the same mistake. For all they knew, this ship had somehow slipped past the patrols, and the crew was hiding below deck. It was unlikely, but not impossible.

Either way, they needed to go down and find out, so he didn't object when Toothless angled them down toward it. "Let's just be careful," he warned. "If it's not one our side took-"

'I will fly away, sink it, and wonder how it got here,' Toothless interrupted. 'Yes, I know what to do.' Four paws thumped onto the deck. Maour put a hand on the hilt of his scythe.

A hatch flipped open and Tuffnut popped up from below deck, a fish dangling from one hand and his mace in the other. "Surprise!"

Then he disappeared again, and a loud thump was heard, along with a muffled grunt. Blast popped up, his tongue hanging out of his mouth, looking pleased with himself. 'Surprise again!'

"I am hurt!" Tuffnut yelled from out of sight. "Fishlegs, help! Get him off me."

'Oh, please,' Blast hummed. Then he tilted to one side, and his smug expression vanished. He looked down with a surprised yelp. 'Hey, no fair! Get that rope off my tail!'

'So,' Toothless said quietly to Maour as Blast slid back into the dark depths with a surprised yelp, 'do we intervene or just watch? I vote we watch for a while.'

"If we didn't have something important to do, I'd agree," Maour sighed. "Guys, come on up here so we can get started."

"Just a second!" Fishlegs called out. Moments later, Berg clambered up onto the deck, followed by his bulky rider, who was lugging along a plain hammer, one Maour didn't recognize.

"I forgot mine on the Waxears' ship," he admitted sheepishly. "You know, when we left. But this one is just as good."

"I, for one," Tuffnut cried out, hefting a well-polished mace up onto the deck as he climbed up, "would _never _abandon a beloved weapon. Macey knows this, and that is why she will never leave me."

'Every time he talks to that piece of metal, I doubt my own nose,' Berg murmured to Toothless. 'You cannot smell insanity on him either, right?'

"They're weird, not crazy," Maour said firmly. Or, at the very least, they weren't crazy in the way that dragons could smell, like Astrid or Dagur.

'No, they're crazy in all the fun ways,' Blast corrected, leaping up after Tuffnut and slamming the hatch shut with his tail.

"Ruffnut and Boom won't be joining us," Tuffnut announced gleefully. "Ruffnut is still being punished."

'For telling the Bogs that Myker-whats-his-name was female so they'd pamper him?' Toothless asked, warbling curiously.

'And Boom for not stopping her, because she's the one with direct access to Ruffnut. Our little brother got to decide on one part of the punishment, and he made them take all of his patrol shifts for a month,' Blast recounted. 'So, Boom is dead tired. That's why she's not here.'

"Ruffnut, on the other hand, is gathering a rock collection," Tuffnut continued. "She has to find a hundred little pebbles with cool markings. When she's done, we're going to hide them around the Myrkur caves, and she has to find them all with her eyes closed and without any help from Boom."

'That is a punishment?' Toothless huffed. 'It sounds more like a cross between pranking and mild torture.'

'Well, what else could we do?' Blast argued. 'If she pretended to be a male as payback, everyone would assume she was Tuffnut, and she could get away with things and have him blamed for it. We aren't going to hurt her, and grounding her means grounding Boom, who did nothing wrong. Us pranking her would be fun for her, and she'd just get us back later. All that's left is weird, pointlessly difficult punishments like that one.'

'You do have a point,' Berg admitted. 'And what she did was not _so _bad in the end. I think that's fair.'

"I think talking about my sister's punishment is slightly less interesting than throwing myself off the side and trying not to drown," Tuffnut interjected, "so let's do something else before I try that to relieve the boredom."

"Yes, let's get to it." Maour slid down off of Toothless's back. "So, Fishlegs, what do we have here? Just to be sure everyone's on the same page."

"This?" Fishlegs shrugged his shoulders. "It's a Berserker warship, medium size, rigged for speed, not combat. There aren't any weapons on the sides, only two catapults, and no net launchers. It _did _carry twenty soldiers, but it doesn't anymore, for obvious reasons."

"So, it's a pretty generic enemy warship?" Maour asked.

"Right now, yes." Fishlegs frowned. "If the real fleet brought extra weaponry from Berserker island, the ones like this will probably get more catapults and some net launchers."

'Heili will tell us if that's happening,' Blast said confidently. 'He got the cool mission.'

'What is Myrkurheili doing?' Toothless asked skeptically. 'I don't remember hearing about this.' Maour nodded in agreement.

'Two days ago, around noon?' Berg asked.

Maour shook his head. "We would have been asleep then."

'Oh, so you really don't know.' Berg shrugged his wing shoulders. 'A ship came by, and it was heading in a weird direction, so Myrkurheili volunteered to follow it from afar and see where it went. We discussed it, and while some were asleep, every family was represented.'

Maour exchanged a look with Toothless; they both understood why they hadn't known. Shadow had gone on a patrol the next night, and then come in to take a shift watching the hatchlings. He must have just been too tired to remember it then. Everyone was pushing themselves.

'That is a good idea,' Toothless finally admitted. 'If it works, we'll know where they're gathering. If not, we're down only one person for a while. But was Myrkurheili the best person to send?'

Surprisingly, Fishlegs answered that before either Tuffnut or Blast could. "He'll be careful as long as he knows there's no adventure to be had that doesn't end in certain death. Nóttskarpur promised to hunt him down and kill him if she found out he had done anything risky and revealed his presence, and he knows she'll follow through, so all adventure means certain death."

'Now can we _please_ get on with this?' Blast barked, urging Tuffnut into the saddle. 'I want to blow something up today.'

'We're not blowing it up right away,' Toothless cautioned as the three dragons and their riders took to the sky. 'We're just going to practice some low passes, get used to strafing a ship. Then one of us, probably you because you'll throw a fit if it's anyone else, will carefully fire one shot at a time to figure out how many it will take to sink a ship. Got it?'

"You take all the fun out of it with stuff like that," Tuffnut complained. "Why can't me and Blast man the ship, and you guys attack it for real? That'd be more fun _and _better training."

"If this goes as planned, we can do that with the other ship," Maour promised. "You guys took three in total, right?"

"Yup!" Fishlegs smiled proudly at that. "They're kind of far from here, but we can get them if you give us a night's forewarning."

"But only three," Tuffnut sighed. "I wish I had gotten picked for our ambassador on Mahelmetan. I bet you they're fighting off Berserkers every day."

* * *

Heather almost smacked her forehead against the wooden roof of the hut when she heard the distant, unmistakable call of a Night Fury. She stopped just short of the wooden beam that would have given her a splitting headache, reacting in time only because she had hit her head in the past.

"It's not even close to dawn," Camicazi groaned from the bottom bunk below. "I regret letting you stay with us."

"Where's your thirst for adventure?" Heather retorted, sliding down to the floor and quickly pulling herself together. She had no idea what was going on, but if a Night Fury was involved, she needed to look official, not like she had slid out of bed and ran out the door without a second thought.

"It's not an adventure if there's nothing to steal and nobody to fight," was the sleepy reply. "Have fun arguing with idiots."

"You know," Heather cautioned, picking up her bow and quiver, "it _might _be an actual fight." That was why she was bringing her bow, but if turned out to be nothing, her morning routine involved target practice anyway.

"Drop dead," was Camicazi's reply. "Or fake dropping dead, if it's a fight."

"Helpful," Heather deadpanned, strapping the special ax Maour had made for her to her waist. She was far less skilled with it than with her bow, but she felt bad whenever she left it behind. Not only was it a good backup weapon, he had put a lot of effort into making it for her.

Then she was out the door, leaving the usually energetic Bog-Burglar behind. Bertha wasn't up, which was absolutely no surprise, so she faced no more questions or complaints.

Just as she was shutting the front door behind her, Einfari spoke, using the link. 'That was Eldurfjall, something's up. Where are you?'

"Just getting out onto the street," Heather replied, ignoring the looks she was getting from the few Vikings up and about. She was well past caring what they thought of her personally; so long as their Chief listened to her, and they knew she had authority as one of those speaking for the massive force occupying their island, she didn't need to be liked or respected.

'Find somewhere high, those streets are too narrow for me to pick you up,' Einfari advised.

Heather looked around and spotted a barrel leaning up against a low, slanting roof. One would never see that sort of thing in a village with more difficult winter storms, but here they felt safe assuming five feet of snow wouldn't fall overnight and cave in weak, sloping roofs.

More importantly, it looked scalable, and the barrel offered an easy way up onto it. She knew it would create a scene but she was well past caring about that.

'I'll be there soon,' Einfari announced. 'We'll practice a pickup while we're at it. I see Eldurfjall flying over the forest, so there's no big hurry.'

Heather didn't take the time to look over her shoulder and confirm that Eldurfjall was in the sky; she was too busy making sure she didn't do too much damage to the roof as she made her way up, stepping carefully. It would be just like Rotison to make her pay to repair damages; he was the kind of person to do that out of spite.

Then she was on the spine of the roof, the highest point, one boot on either side to steady her. The village of Mahelmetan was mostly visible from this position, and were she not accustomed to flying and getting far better views, she might have considered this a good vantage point.

As it was, she was more concerned with holding her arms out and hoping Einfari had a good handle on how fast was too fast for an aerial pickup; they had not practiced this particular move before, though it was on the long list of things to get to eventually.

'Three heartbeats,' Einfari called out, giving a mental warning. 'Two,' she immediately continued, 'one-'

True to her word, one nervous heartbeat later, a gust of displaced air nearly unbalanced Heather, and then two strong paws curled around her shoulders, yanking her up into the air.

"I appreciate the gentle handling," she called up once her breath had returned, "but you slowing down almost knocked me off the roof."

Einfari, who was gliding down to an open field, whined at that. 'Sorry, I did not even think of it. So, slowing down needs to be done further away?'

"Ideally. Now, what's going on?"

'We'll know in a moment.' Einfari flew at a near-frantic pace, racing to meet Eldurfjall partway above the forest.

'Humans in small ships,' Eldurfjall mentally cried out as they neared him. 'Coming and going, at dawn. They fired on me!'

"Spies." She knew it for certain, without even needing to check. They might not bear the Berserker crest, or even look like them, but all traffic had to come by the docks, by order of Rotison. Anyone who put in anywhere else on the island would be treated as a spy, because nobody sane would risk it unless they had something to hide. A smarter sort of spy would happily put in and pretend to be going about some other business, right under the noses of the massive fleet anchored nearby, but Viking spies tended to not be that smart, as most Vikings wouldn't want to sully their honor in the occupation to begin with. It was an occupation for those with no honor and low intelligence, a way to make quick money at high risk.

'How many?' Einfari called out as they reached him and kept going. He turned around and caught up to them as they flew. 'Coming _and _going?'

'Both,' he confirmed. 'A little ship is approaching and will not be here for a while, and another is leaving.'

"Great," Heather groaned. "Did either of you fly over this part of the island before now?"

'Not me,' Einfari growled. 'I like flying way too high to have seen anything.'

'Not me,' Eldurfjall added. 'I was busy studying the habits and reactions of the natives here. I have not done much flying at all, recently.'

"We're probably already too late," she concluded sourly. "They had plenty of time to show up, get a good look around, and leave, and Dagur would have hired a lot of them at staggered times." That was common sense if one had the gold to spare; where one spy might fail, ten unaffiliated spies probably wouldn't, if only by slipping by as their compatriots were caught. It was not certain, nothing was certain here, but it was likely, and they had to assume it had happened.

'We should still catch these, though,' Einfari growled. 'They might know if there were others, or what is being reported, or where reports are going.'

"All good points," Heather agreed. "Eldurfjall, how many?"

'No more than ten in the ship, and however many are in the one approaching.'

"We can take that many on our own,' Einfari hummed thoughtfully. 'Right?'

"Yeah, definitely." Ten men versus two Night Furies? It wouldn't even be much of a fight as long as they were smart about it.

'Down here,' Eldurfjall called out as they neared the edge of the forest and the island. 'See it?'

"Yeah, I do." It would have been harder to pick out if the spies weren't frantically trying to get away. A ship, anchored right off a small cliff, with makeshift rope ladders scaling the cliff. They couldn't be more suspicious if they tried.

'They're all scattering into the forest,' Einfari growled. 'If they get back to the village-'

"They'll blend in with the people, and we'll never find them," Heather concluded. "Okay, for this we need help. Eldurfjall, can you fly over the fields and knock out anyone who makes a run for it?" They were lucky there were fields between the small forest and the village, else it would be almost impossible to catch all of the spies. Eldurfjall could keep them trapped in the forest until search parties could be rounded up and sent out.

* * *

"And that makes ten," a rugged Viking called out, marching an equally large and menacing Viking out in front of him, forcing the man to keep moving, his hands tied behind his back. "Ye sure that was all of 'em?"

Eldurfjall nodded enthusiastically. 'Yes, I'm sure,' he warbled.

"Yes," Heather called out on his behalf, "that's all." The ship hadn't left, and in the brief time it had taken to rally some of the Meatheads and Bog Burglars, none had even tried to cross the fields. Seeing their faces now, and the way their eyes locked onto Einfari and Eldurfjall, that made sense. Vikings feared Night Furies.

"I should have gotten up when you did," Camicazi admitted brightly, tossing one of her knives up and catching it. "Next time, pull me out of bed."

"This wasn't much of an adventure," Heather remarked, amused that she was taking the opposite side of the argument this time around. "We didn't even do anything, just flying around and getting other people to go in after them." It hadn't even been hard to do that much; 'spy' might as well be a curse when it came to honorable Vikings, and everyone had been raring to go once they heard it, despite the early hour.

"Yeah, but if I had gone, I could have been here in time to get some action," Camicazi explained ruefully. "You're _sure _there were only ten of them? I want to hunt someone down."

"This forest's tiny," Bertha announced, coming up behind them and putting her hands on her daughter's shoulders, holding her in place. "And yer not big enough to hunt 'em down without killin' 'em."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Camicazi grumbled, twitching under her mother's restraining grip, "no capturing people big enough to crush me with their weight."

"I've killed men like that," Bertha said seriously. "Gotten out of a few close scrapes that way. Nobody expects to have their chest caved in by being sat on."

'You know,' Einfari hummed thoughtfully, 'that could work for me, too. Against humans, anyway.'

"I'm not helping you practice that," Heather quipped, looking back at her friend.

"I help you practice your bow," Einfari reminded her.

"Yes, but not by serving as the target." She looked up at the slowly brightening sky, and then at the prisoners being herded away. "Bertha, what are the odds they were alone? You're the sneaky tribe."

"Says the girl who rides a dragon that has a reputation for never being seen," Bertha retorted. "Slim to none, I'd say. We'll bulk up preparations and patrols, in case they do somethin' stupid like attacking. It won't come for a while yet, but it will come sooner or later."

"Great. It's time we had some action, not just a few spies or a random Berserker ship sailing too close." Camicazi flipped her knife back into its sheath on her side. "Heather, do you use that ax, or is it just for show?"

"I'm not very good with it," Heather admitted, ignoring the surprised looks that admission pulled from both women. Admissions of inadequacy might be normal on the Isle of Night, but they certainly were not out here, and she really didn't care anymore. "I want to improve, though."

"Let's spar, then," Camicazi offered.

"Later today. I have archery practice now." She considered that more likely to be useful over the course of the coming war, so that took first priority. "And then flying with Einfari, and then walking the village… Noon, maybe?"

"We can make a regular thing of it," Camicazi offered. "It'll help pass the time."

'Anything that makes you more dangerous is a good thing,' Einfari offered. 'Just do not tell my brother about this.'

"You're the one who's going to go back in a few days to report," Heather retorted with a smile. "You can just censor the stuff Nóttreiði wouldn't like right out of what I say." She wasn't entirely sure if Nóttreiði _would _make a fuss about her learning to fight better; it was hard to say what he would do, let alone what he would really think.

* * *

Maour wiped the sweat off of his brow and looked down at a new invention he and Toothless had labored over on and off for the last few weeks. "See anything I'm missing? Any sharp edges, rough patches, horrible mistakes?"

'Of course not,' Toothless rumbled in his mind. Physically, he was curled up around the hatchlings over in the other chamber, but that was no obstacle to him offering his opinion. 'It had better be good, with how hard it was for you to make.'

"What can I say? Sewing isn't my strong suit." He certainly didn't think so _now_, after spending so long on these supposedly simple pieces of leather and sailcloth. Making the saddle and tailfin had been easy compared to these, though he couldn't pinpoint exactly why that was so, as both were larger and more complex.

Maybe it was just that these were so detailed. Both saddle and tailfin had been large, general shapes, while these new creations had to be exactly the right size, not to mention accounting for insulation, and movement, and ease of use-

He shook his head, leaned back in the rudimentary chair pulled up to the desk in his own little side-cavern, and closed his eyes. Though he wouldn't admit it to Toothless or any of the other Svarturs, he was tired a lot of the time too. They had way more to do than him, and this would hopefully take a little of the burden off of everyone in addition to letting him pull his weight, but still.

'Are we going to do a demonstration tonight?' Toothless asked eagerly. 'Von should be back soon, and it is Mom's turn to watch them next, so she and Dad will be up soon too.'

"Yes. I'll bring it all out." He couldn't help the nervous shake to his tired hands as he gathered everything they had made and brought it out to lie in a corner of the main chamber; he wanted to make things better, but he wasn't _entirely _sure Cloey would like some of what he had come up with. Her instincts were fickle things, even if she herself was totally reasonable, and something that stressed her was not worth the convenience. It was possible this had all been for nothing.

Later that night, Von stumbled into the cavern and promptly closed her eyes, lying in front of the exit.

"Hey, Von," Maour said softly, going to scratch behind her ears. "I've got something to show everyone, something good, and you're not going to want to miss it."

She opened her eyes, looking back at him. "Okay. But I'm really tired, so it won't be long, will it? I have to watch Fora and Vern tomorrow night."

"What won't be long?" Shadow asked, walking into the cavern looking as rested as any of them ever managed to be nowadays, only slightly tired. Cloey followed after him.

'Maour has some surprises for everyone,' Toothless crowed loudly, his voice almost humming with enthusiasm. 'We have been working on them in secret.' He let Fora and Vern, both awake at the moment, out from under his wing. They both seemed more or less uninterested, preoccupied with flapping the tiny wings that had come up from their backs a few weeks prior.

"Right, and I'll be quick about it," Maour added, walking over to the devices he had stashed in the corner. "First, we have these." He pulled out two small wooden trays, each about twice the length and width of a hatchling, and an inch or so deep.

'Our biggest problem is cleaning up after them, right?' Toothless asked excitedly. 'Guess what these do.'

"Way to spoil it, brother," Maour complained. "I'll be filling these with sand. Fora and Vern are pretty regular, so to speak, so after they eat, just put them on these. Then, once they've done their business," and it was a testament to how tired and excited he was that at no point did he care enough to feel embarrassed about what he was saying, "just take these outside and dump them. I can refill them with clean sand."

Cloey walked over and pawed at the currently empty trays, her eyes wide. "No more messes on the floor," she warbled. "No more stripping out the moss to clean up. No more stench.'

"That's the plan," Maour agreed. It probably wouldn't work all the time, because accidents would happen, but it would help immensely. He really should have thought of these sooner, given it had only taken him a day to refine the simple idea and make them.

Cloey licked him right across the face, startling him. "I love these already. Thank you."

"I think we are all going to be thanking you," Shadow called out proudly. "Repeatedly. Incessantly, even."

"Once is enough," Maour replied, smiling widely as he wiped his face off. "And that's not all." He returned to the corner and lifted one of the leather and cloth ensembles. "As you all know, I can't put out enough heat to keep them warm, and therefore can't watch them on my own."

"And this changes that?" Von asked eagerly.

"Sort of." As he spoke, he set up the little arrangement on the stone in front of Vern, who watched with mild interest. "They need heat, and I can't provide it alone. They also can't heat each other enough on their own, because then just huddling together would be good. But in here…"

He reached out and picked Vern up, carefully lifting him from below. Supposedly he could just grab Vern's scruff and lift him that way, but he wasn't comfortable doing that. He set Vern in the half-dome of leather and cloth, and then quickly nestled Fora in beside him.

'That may be the cutest thing I have ever seen them do,' Von rumbled, leaning down to get a closer look.

"Agreed." Both hatchlings had immediately nestled together and were staring out of the little leather cave with identical wide-eyed looks. "And it holds in their body heat." He hoped. He had gotten the idea from Viking tents and blankets, and had combined the two. The little dome was just big enough to hold them, though it would be easily expanded, part of what made creating it so difficult, and had only the one hole in the front, where he had put them in.

'Are you sure?' Cloey asked nervously. 'It looks cozy, but that is not the same thing as being warm.'

"We're testing it now, and next time Toothless has a shift, we'll test it then too." It _should_ work, he had insulated it more thoroughly than his own clothing, and that was good enough to hold up to the frigid chill of the air above the clouds.

Everyone sat in silence, their eyes focused on the hatchlings, who stared back. Moments passed, and neither hatchling so much as squirmed in discomfort, though they would seek heat the moment they grew too cold. Vern pawed a little at Fora, and then both began to fall asleep, their eyelids drooping down.

"That's a pretty promising start," Maour said quietly, relief flooding his body. "Obviously, we won't trust it to be enough until we've made sure it works indefinitely, or when they're already cold to start, but if it's good enough no matter what the situation is…"

"Test it carefully," Cloey requested. "More than you think it needs. Even after you are already sure."

"I plan to." He wasn't going to take the slightest risk, and he had anticipated her worry; either was sufficient to drive him to be more cautious than absolutely necessary.

'If it works, you will be able to tend them on your own?' Shadow asked.

"That's the idea," he admitted. "I want to pull my weight."

"You have more than done so already," Shadow said firmly. "But we will not reject the extra help. What is the other for?"

"That's in case they soil this one, because it's going to be hard to clean." Ideally, with a spare, he would have time to thoroughly clean and air out the soiled one before it needed to be used again. He also planned on making many more, both to have more extras and to pass around to the other families for future use, but that was probably going to have to wait until after the war.

"I want it for when I watch them," Von asserted. "They are just too cute like that."

'Don't keep them in there too long at a time when they are not supposed to be sleeping,' Shadow cautioned. "They need to move around."

'Of course, but for when they do sleep…' She paused to yawn. 'You don't have any of those for our size, do you Maour?'

"I don't know if you'd want one," he replied seriously. "You don't' have any trouble keeping warm, so it might just feel stuffy and confining." He could try and make her one someday, if she really wanted it, but that would be a daunting task.

"I was just kidding," she murmured, heading deeper into the caves. "Good work, brother."

"This will make it so much easier on all of us," Cloey purred, nuzzling him. "Again, thank you. Can you take them out? It is good, but I want them against my side today."

"Sure. If they were awake, they could climb out themselves." He carefully lifted Fora, and then Vern, over to Cloey.

Shadow walked over to him next. 'I'm proud of you.' That was all he said, but it was more than enough to convey his approval.

"Thanks," Maour managed. After five years it shouldn't have been so unexpected, but it was anyway.

'What about me?' Toothless called out, on his way out to the entrance to the caverns. 'I helped.'

'You too,' Shadow agreed. 'Though I suspect your greatest contribution was holding your tongue until everything was ready.'

'Definitely,' Toothless agreed. 'I'll be sleeping out here, Maour.'

"I'll be there in a moment," Maour agreed. He wasn't _quite _done.

'There is more, isn't there?' Shadow hummed knowingly once Toothless was gone.

"Not more inventions, but yeah," Maour admitted. "War's coming, right? We might need _everybody _to fight. If things get bad, are you going to be able to trust someone else to watch them for a time?" He felt he had to ask, if only to plan around whatever answer he got.

Cloey sighed sadly. 'I hate the very thought, but if it gets that bad, maybe. I fear I wouldn't be a very good fighter if that happens, though. I would be too distracted.'

"I figured." He rolled his shoulders, feeling uncomfortable. "And if everything really goes bad… Should I make slings for them?"

'Slings?' Shadow asked.

"LIke these," he gestured with a toe at his insulated cocoon invention, "but made to go across your chest so that you can carry them in flight." He hadn't made them yet, because if anything would trigger Cloey's protective instinct-

"I do not like that idea,' Cloey hissed. 'It sounds far too risky. Flight is cold for full-grown dragons, and we would not be able to adjust them or turn back, and there would be no way to save them if we set out and then found that it was not enough.' She hugged her sleeping hatchlings close. 'I do not want to imagine setting out with them lively and warm, and landing to find them cold and-'

'Then do not think of it,' Shadow interrupted, leaning down to rest his head on her back. 'Do not think of it.'

"That's why I didn't make them," Maour admitted into the awkward silence. "I think I could make it work, but there would be no way to test it. I just wanted to consider potential situations." There were some choices, some kinds of responsibility, that he didn't want to carry. They were more suited to deciding this than him.

'Make them,' Shadow requested, to Cloey's distress. He sat down and draped himself across her back in comfort. 'In a last resort, better to have a chance than none. If it is flee and risk it or die, we would of course flee.'

'Never use them,' Cloey whined at Maour. 'When you finish them, give them to me. I do not want to worry about them being used unless it is absolutely necessary.'

Maour nodded, not bothering to argue that somewhat reasonable precaution. This was what he had wanted; them taking charge and making the choice. He'd make the slings as best he could, and then give them to her to hide wherever she chose. One last resort, kept in a way that did not worry her.

'It will not come to that,' Shadow added. 'But thank you for thinking of it anyway. It's always best to have a plan ready for the worst possibilities.'

"I really hope it doesn't come to that," Maour said to himself, turning to go and try to get some sleep. He doubted he'd be successful; Cloey's hastily interrupted words were already haunting him, adding to his less explicitly described worries about such a device failing when it mattered most.

Some things he didn't want to trust to his inventive prowess. Nobody was perfect, and he almost never got things exactly right on the first try. It would be better all around if they just made sure it never came to that point.

* * *

Heather slammed her ax down into the ground, burying both blades in the dirt. She felt wrung out, her arms and shoulders aching fiercely.

"That's all for today," Camicazi said briskly. "You're lasting longer, for sure. If you ditched the ax and went with knives, it would be a lot easier. I could lend you my second-best set."

"No, I'm fine," Heather replied, grunting at the effort of yanking the ax out of the ground and hooking it to her waistband. She _wasn't _fine, not at the moment, but she didn't want to try knives. They wouldn't be effective against larger targets with bulky armor, and that was exactly the sort of target that would be able to withstand her bow and get within melee range.

"So, where are we going now?" Camicazi asked, following her as she left the field.

"Shade," was her first answer, as that was what she was seeking in heading to the outskirts of the village. The sun was not kind on days like this, and it made her head ache. She missed sleeping during the day, which was a surprise. But the days were getting long and hot, and the nights were almost always pleasantly cool. She supposed she would feel differently about the sun's warmth when Winter came around.

"Okay," Camicazi said once they had reached a pleasantly dark shadow and stood in it for a while, "where next?"

"You don't have to follow me around," Heather replied.

"Eh, you look lonely without your extra shadow," Camicazi joked. "She'll be back tonight, right?"

"That's right." Einfari had gone back to give a report and was flying back here even now.

"You know," Camicazi said casually, "that tells me your island is close."

Heather smiled condescendingly. "Do you really think it's that easy to figure out?" she asked, lying through her teeth. She had long since come up with the answer to that particular deduction, as it wasn't a hard one to make. "She gives her report to whoever has flown out to meet her."

Camicazi frowned. "I should have figured," she admitted after a moment. "But anyway, you can tell me. I won't snitch."

"No, I really can't, I swore not to." _No matter how likeable she is_, Heather silently added.

"Eh, fine," Camicazi conceded. "I'll figure it out eventually. So, where are we going?"

"Nowhere in particular." She needed to wander the village, specifically the docks, and make sure there wasn't anything unusual going on, but other than that she was just passing the time until nightfall.

* * *

"Have a nice flight?" Heather asked, embracing her friend right at the edge of the woods. They were alone, and that was how she liked it. The night sky beckoned, and she didn't doubt that Einfari would be up for a nice, long flight, even if she had just spent the day in the sky.

'Very nice, as you would know if you had checked in on me even once today,' Einfari laughed. 'What had you so busy?'

"Archery, sparring, and then explaining to about a dozen Meatheads that no, just because we're occupying their island does _not mean they _get first pick of the goods any trader brings in." Honestly, it felt like some of their allies were trying to offend the villagers who lived here with stuff like that. Starving out their hosts was a recipe for disaster, and yet every other common Viking seemed to think they were entitled to some sort of benefit just for being with the occupying force.

'That took all day?'

"Pretty much," she huffed. "First it was just them, then they escalated it to their Chief, and then Rotison got wind of the whole thing and tried to solve it all when I had it sorted and set us back to square one. _Then _I got to explain to Mogadon that no, I wasn't interfering in his tribe, I was just keeping the peace."

'I guess that explains it,' Einfari huffed. 'Well, so much the better.'

"How do you figure that?" Heather asked irritably. She hadn't had a very good day.

'It made it easier to hide the other person visiting,' Einfari said bluntly, gesturing toward the forest. 'We can go flying in a little bit. Someone wants to talk to you.'

"And you're not going to tell me who," Heather guessed, now more curious than annoyed. "I just walk into the forest?"

'Yup. Have a nice talk. I'll be waiting here.' Einfari made a show of settling down in the grass and relaxing.

Heather made her way into the dark forest, glad that her vision had improved to the point that it wasn't difficult to navigate at night. When she heard a rustling behind her, she held up a hand and took a shot in the dark.

"Einfari is helping you, so you're not a Myrkur, because she does not go in for helping them prank," she theorized. "The Svarturs don't do this sort of thing on a whim, Toothless only did it because it was a special occasion. The Eldurs just wouldn't see the point. Therefore, you're a Nótt. And you're obviously an adult, from the sound of your movement."

There was no response. Heather smiled at the trees in front of her.

"What's more, Einfari isn't quite sure what to make of her brother, so I can rule him out. Between Skarpur and Nóttleiðtogi, Skarpur is more likely to want to come to an island of humans. Hello, Skarpur." She turned around.

Nóttleiðtogi rumbled in dry amusement, pressing a paw down to snap a small branch. 'You underestimate me,' he remarked.

"What brings you out here?" Heather asked, more than a little worried. It would take something important to drive Nóttleiðtogi so close to so many humans, many untrustworthy. "Is something wrong?"

'No,' he replied. 'Relax. It is not _so _hard for me to come here, knowing that Einfari is watching to be sure none come near us. Though I am here for an important reason. There is a matter of trust between us.'

"Have I done something to break that trust?" she asked nervously. She didn't see how, but if he was here instead of just chastising her through Einfari, it had to be bad.

'How do I put this?' Nóttleiðtogi rumbled, looking away, his grey eyes scanning the forest around them. He was tense, if not as much as Heather had thought he would be, given their location. 'You are here, in a nest of humans, far from our island. Your presence no longer lurks in our caves. Your smell has begun to fade.'

Heather rolled her shoulders, not sure whether she should be offended, confused, or worried. She didn't know what he was trying to say.

'I miss you,' he abruptly continued, swinging his head around to meet her eyes. 'Call me crazy, but I had grown more used to you than I knew. It has bothered me these last few weeks, not having you around, not hearing you talk, not spending time with you on occasion.'

"I… Don't know what to say, honestly," Heather admitted. "I kind of have to be here, unless Maour or Fishlegs-"

Nóttleiðtogi cut her off with a slash of his tail. "The former is needed by his family, and the latter unsuited to what you do on a daily basis. No, I am here just to tell you that you _are _missed, by me and by Skarpur and by Joy. Maybe even by Nóttreiði, somewhere in the confused depths of his heart.'

"I'm flattered. I miss you all too," she admitted. "I'd rather be there than here."

'You're the right person for this job,' Nóttleiðtogi countered. 'I trust you to do this. Here, among humans, with every chance to sell us out, I trust you.' He shook his head wryly. 'It does not feel so odd to me until I say something like that.'

"Thank you. Really, thank you. That means a lot to me." She hadn't expected something like this, but it felt good to hear.

'When you and my daughter go flying tonight, I will fly with you,' he offered. 'If you would like that?'

"Sure." She _did _miss casually doing things with him, like they had back on the Isle of Night. It would be nice to catch up in some way. "You're not staying, are you?"

'There are limits to how much I have healed,' he rumbled sternly. 'For my safety and sanity, no. Just tonight, with my daughter watching over me as I sleep in the safest possible place on this island, before I make the trip back.'

"Still. I'd be glad to have you along." He turned to go to Einfari, and she followed, walking alongside him.

It was not a small thing that he had done, flying all the way out here just to talk to her and maybe fly a little before heading back. She _was _touched by the gesture, even more so because she knew full well he meant her to notice how much effort he had put into making it. The same message delivered by proxy would not have meant nearly so much.

'Oh, one more thing,' he said quietly as they walked. 'You may call me Togi.'

Heather couldn't help but smile at that. The day might have been terrible, but her night was already making up for it. "Thanks, Togi."

_**Author's Note**_**: I wanted to end this one on a little bit of genuine progress; as it turns out, losing Heather's constant presence was the last push Togi needed (and maybe some sessions with Maour, if Maour could find time for that). We've still gotten nowhere with Raethi, though… Oh, I have plans for him.**

**(Also, for those who are wondering, there are about ten chapters left in this story. Plenty of plot, and a lot of action, but only ten chapters.)**


	35. Chapter 35

Maour yawned cavernously, but his mind was already far more alert than his body felt. Being woken to hear that Myrkurheili had returned with urgent news would do that. He had been gone for weeks, on account of being sent to scout out the Berserkers and ideally to find where they were gathering.

By extension, Myrkurheili had been sent to find Astrid and Dagur. Thinking of them was more than enough to wake Maour up; cold dread was not a restful feeling.

'Don't close your eyes, I want to see him,' Toothless said urgently. 'Does he look tired to you?'

"Yes, but everyone looks tired," Maour countered. Myrkurheili did look exhausted, standing up on the pillar in the middle of the vertical cavern, but he looked better than Von or Shadow, who were both drowsing even though they were standing right beside him. Cloey was probably the most rested of the family at the moment and was watching Myrkurheili intently.

'Is everyone here?' Myrkurheili called out. 'I want to say it once and then go to sleep while the rest of you freak out.'

"Is it that bad?" Fishlegs asked worriedly.

'Not really,' Myrkurheili admitted. 'The summary is that there's a lot of ships, about forty, gathered at an island with a dangerous mountain, and that more are arriving by the day. That's all I have for you. They're gathering.'

'What do you mean, a dangerous mountain?' Boom called out curiously.

'The kind that spits molten rock on occasion. You can ask me more tomorrow night,' Myrkurheili grumbled, leaping off the pillar and gliding down to the passage that led to the Myrkur side of the cavern system.

'I cannot believe he had the gall to call us all together in the middle of the day for that,' Cloey complained. 'He could have waited. We all could have waited. We did not even need to gather to hear it.'

"I guess he wanted to feel like it was worth the effort," Maour proposed, not really feeling the need to defend Myrkurheili. Cloey was right, there had been no point in gathering. The news was not that urgent. Myrkurheili had found them, they had not yet brought in all of their forces in the area, and they were on an island with an active volcano. That was it. It wasn't urgent at all.

* * *

"Best, island, ever," Dagur panted, slamming the door to the roomy cabin open. His face was ashy and covered with congealed beads of sweat, a disgusting mix of ash, salt, and water. There was a burn on his tunic, and his red hair was so caked in ash it appeared grey.

Astrid looked up from the parchment Savage had just brought her and gestured for him to come over and read it. She didn't _need _him to, she had enough authority now to begin preparations, but she would need him to know what she was preparing for.

"Reading? Really?" He tossed a burnt stick to the floor, careless of the smoldering tip. "Come on, the volcano is erupting! How often does that happen?"

"Since we got here, twice a day at least." She didn't care about the constantly rumbling mountain except when it impinged upon the logistics of assembling and preparing a fleet for war. She didn't care for the logistics either, but they were necessary for the hunt, so she oversaw as much as she could. "This is important."

"Tell you what, we can take it up to this great spot I found," Dagur suggested, coming up behind her to lay an ashy hand on her shoulder. "It's surrounded by these hot lava flows, and it's nice and flat. I figured we could try and make an heir up there. It would be the greatest possible place to start the next Berserker Chief."

She picked up the parchment and all but shoved it in his face. "Read it. You'll be interested." If necessary, she'd promise to go up to his stupid spot and do what he wanted, but only after he signed off on her plan.

"Scout report, blah blah blah…" She could _hear _the moment he took notice of what he was reading, signified by the parchment crumpling in his fist. "What do they _mean_, everyone else got caught? I paid good money for those dishonorable slackers to get me information, not sit in a cell and _maybe _get interrogated!"

"Read the rest." She wasn't happy about the failure rate either, but that was irrelevant. Those other spies could burn for all she cared.

"Ah… I see." He reverently placed the parchment down and flattened the crumpled creases he had just put into it, restoring it as much as possible and staring at in a downright creepy way. "They're right there."

"They are not prepared for us to attack," she explained, making sure he understood that much. He was smart, most of the time, but this could not be left to chance. "They won't be ready. But they _will _be in a few weeks."

"So, we should go and annihilate them now," he concluded, tossing the parchment aside. "Ready the fleet!"

"Already on it." She felt a flush of satisfaction. It was times like this that she knew she made the right choice in marrying him and dropping Berk like the backwater island it was. Nobody else would just decide to go and plan on the way, if there would be a plan at all, not like that. There would be talking and arguing and careful consideration, and then maybe, if she was lucky, a portion of their total strength would be sent out. This was so much better.

"We'll crush them," Dagur said confidently. "Now, since that's decided-"

"Your spot." She wasn't worried about starting something that would hinder her hunts now; it would all be over in a few weeks, and past that it would be a work of years that would be best spent having already taken care of this particular duty to the tribe. "Take me there."

* * *

Gobber winced at the thunder under his foot and peg; he would never be used to that sound and feeling. It wasn't smart, being anywhere near an active lump of fiery rock spewing burning liquid and clouds of smoke everywhere, and his gut was tingling in the way he knew usually meant danger.

Nobody sane would stay here; that was the reason the island was lifeless and desolate. So, of course, this was where the insane couple had chosen to assemble their fleet. Typical.

He stumped across the flat slab of volcanic rock, wishing he had thought to bring his metal peg. Who could have known, getting onto the ship to head to the meeting of Chieftains, that he would finally find a use for it? He hadn't found a use for his hand-carved wooden hook prosthetic yet, or his parchment prosthetic. It would have been one nice thing about being press-ganged into changing tribes and following a madwoman.

"The Chief says get ready to go," he yelled as he passed a group of burly Berserkers. "Move it!" That was his job right now. Telling everyone to get ready for a spur-of-the-moment attack on the people he'd rather be fighting for.

But he was here for a reason, and that same reason kept him around. Well, two reasons really, but they both pushed him to do the same things. Either would be enough to keep him where he was, walking across a Thor-forsaken chunk of hot rock in the middle of nowhere, yelling orders at people he'd happily gut if it were up to him.

"Oy," Savage yelled, coming around a large, ominously situated cluster of rocks that looked like they had fallen from the sky and lodged where they were now. "Got a moment?"

"If a burnin' rock don't take it from me," Gobber called back, deciding he didn't need to act drunk at the moment. It wasn't even noon, and anyone with the slightest bit of sense would avoid impairing their judgment around here.

"Good. You can talk to Astrid without risking losing another limb, right?" Savage asked urgently. "This attack is a bad idea."

"How so?" He didn't think very highly of Savage, but the man had helped Dagur not implode his tribe, so he had to have some talent at correcting insanity. "Looks good to me. Unsuspecting target, equal or better forces, backup if it all goes South." This was better than them waiting a few weeks and then attacking with their full might in that it would be less horrible odds, but he had to hope Maour and his allies would be ready.

"They have dragons," Savage spat, slapping his hand against the rock. He pulled it back quickly, probably because all of the rocks on the island were uncomfortably hot to the touch. The air even shimmered sometimes for how hot it was. "We should be waiting and crushing them with our full might. Your side of the leadership is risking things for no reason. Set her straight."

Gobber smirked at that; he was pretty sure Savage wouldn't live a day past Astrid hearing how he spoke of her at times like this. For a petty, cowardly man, Savage had a very specific idea of what his place in the tribe was, and thus what Gobber's was as well, as they were counterparts, the sane advisors of the insane couple.

"Nah," he drawled, enjoying the look of helpless rage on the other man's face. "I think it's fine, and she'd not listen anyway. Gotta know the one ya advise." He definitely didn't want them to wait, but his response also had the added authenticity of being the truth; she wouldn't listen, not when she had spent weeks waiting here. She was itching to kill something, and there was nothing here to kill here except her own people.

"We are _supposed _to make sure their reckless lack of thought doesn't doom us all," Savage complained, sounding all too aware how little he could really do. "I never thought I could say this, but that woman is crazier than Dagur!"

"So you try," Gobber said dismissively, turning on his peg leg and wincing at the powdery lack of resistance under it. That would be the ash, making it hard to walk. He really should have brought his metal peg leg.

He also, come to think of it, should have brought some smart way of sending messages to Maour. Maour could have come up with one if he'd thought to. Maybe a trained Terror or something. As it was, Gobber felt almost as helpless about that as Savage was about stopping the attack they were preparing for.

But he wasn't helpless, and at some point during this upcoming war, maybe even during this battle, he'd do what he was here for, aside from helping Maour's forces however possible. He could do both; they weren't mutually incompatible.

Gobber wandered off to find a place to sit and dust off his peg leg, the volcano rumbling ominously behind him. He'd be glad to put his back to this place, in any case.

* * *

Dagur walked along his favorite warship, inspecting the heavily armed Berserkers lining its deck. It was the middle of the night, but he was restless from talking so long about the attack plan, so he figured he might as well line up everyone just for the fun of it.

He shivered in delight at that thought. They had come up with some fun ways to use the surprise he had down in the cells, though only time would tell how that would turn out. It was always great to punch the enemy where they least expected it-

He lashed out with a clenched fist without even thinking about it, and almost kept walking before he realized the man he had struck at had caught his punch. He turned to face the Berserker in question, his mood leaping about like crazy.

His mood settled, and he nodded approvingly. "Good reflexes." Then he continued onward, entirely aware that had his mood settled in another direction, that man would be dead or worse. It was that man's lucky night, nothing more. Besides, he would regret killing one of his finest Berserkers later, so it was better that he hadn't now.

"Dismissed!" he yelled once he reached the end of the line. None of them had been even slightly out of order, which was a shame. A good, hearty yelling would have been fun.

But there were other things just as fun. He turned to walk back to his cabin and wake Astrid-

And then turned right back around again, thinking it over. A lack of sleep made him grouchy and less able to control his moods, and she was less experienced at controlling herself at all. It wouldn't be good to keep her up all night; they had already been up late. She needed her sleep.

He giggled to himself at that, and ran over to the very front of the ship, which had a name he couldn't remember and didn't care about. He stood on the very edge, leaning out over the railing and looking at the horizon.

Soon, they would be in glorious battle. There would be killing and death and maybe some torture if the situation allowed it. _Then _there would be Night Fury hats, and a glorious return to Berserker island, and eventually an heir that would be as mad as him and Astrid combined, a true terror they could raise to lead the Berserker tribe to further glory once they inevitably died in the course of their glorious conquests.

The future was glorious and bloody, just the way he liked it. He was glad he had found Astrid; having a wife as insane as him was so entertaining! So endearing! So freeing!

Dagur remained there, leaning out to look at the horizon, for the rest of the night, his mind running in disjointed, nonsensical loops and sudden turns. He was far too wound up to sleep. The blood and glory he so craved was almost there, or rather, he and his fleet had almost reached it.

* * *

Einfari flipped to the side, throwing her body through a small, puffy cloud with no warning. She felt a telltale shift in the weight on her back, little though it was, and huffed in disappointment.

"I didn't feel it that time," Heather admitted, well aware that she hadn't done as she should. "Try it again soon."

'No promises.' She didn't think it would work to train immediate reactions to _unexpected _maneuvers if Heather was ready for them. Such training was necessary, too; there wouldn't always be time to plan out flight courses, or to bark warnings before dodging something midair. It was safer if Heather accustomed herself to leaning with every small movement. Toothless and Maour had assured them that it could be done so long as Heather learned to interpret Einfari's sense of feeling.

Of course, they hadn't mentioned that it was a difficult task. She didn't know if they were even aware that it should be. Maour had been doing it for years, ever since his first real flight with Toothless.

"You know, if it wasn't dangerous, I'd suggest we try and do what Maour and Toothless did," Heather volunteered, unknowingly thinking along the very same lines. "Maybe it's easier when our lives are on the line."

'For obvious reasons, we can't find out,' Einfari said dryly. She wasn't worried Heather would try; there was no way for that to happen. Heather didn't have a false tailfin to give her any control over the flight's course.

On the other paw, she _was _worried about what would happen if they didn't get this down, so she flew higher, intending to throw herself into a few more gut-wrenching twists and dives. Hopefully, if she made it scary enough, Heather would catch on like Maour had.

"Hey…" Heather leaned forward in the saddle just as they reached the top of the steep climb Einfari had begun. "That looks bad."

Einfari checked Heather's vision just long enough to see that she was staring at something on the horizon, something that to her eyes was a long, brown line. Then she returned to her own sight and focused her far more powerful eyes on the same distant scene.

'Yes… Very bad.' She knew the enemy fleet when she saw it. There were dozens of warships approaching Mahelmetan.

Or maybe not Mahelmetan. She frantically turned midair, not even noticing that Heather managed to anticipate that particular move, and looked up at the sun, trying to fix positions the way her mother had taught her. The fleet was heading in their general direction, but they had flown out to the far side of Mahelmetan-

So they were _not _heading anywhere near the Isle of Night, as Maour had named it. They were circling around to approach Mahelmetan from the far side, probably angling to come up at the uninhabited coastline for as long as possible so as to avoid detection.

'How long until they reach the fleet?' Einfari asked, calming down. The whole reason they were on Mahelmetan was to keep attention away from their home, and that ploy was still working. There was no real reason to fear it wasn't but Einfari could never feel entirely assured.

"Not long at all," Heather said worriedly. "We should have been running patrol ships out around the island. They're only a day away."

'When you say day, do you mean they will be in fighting range by nightfall?' Einfari asked, hoping to get a clarification.

"I mean that, yes," Heather confirmed. "That's way too little time."

'Too little to even get reinforcements from home,' Einfari growled, seeing that all too clearly. Eldurfjall had been replaced by Berg, who had an open line with Fishlegs, so the Isle could get the news quickly enough, but the trip took a night, so even if they scrambled and could go immediately, they'd not arrive until the fight had long since started, if not ended.

"Not soon enough, but they could be in time to help us if we hurry back and find Berg," Heather countered. "But we should know what we're up against. How many are there?"

'I can fly over them, but if I do, they'll know we've spotted them.' She didn't think a fleet that large meant to hide anyway, but it might be worth keeping the element of surprise.

"They'll know they've been spotted soon anyway, they're almost within sight of the island already," Heather said. "We should get a count."

* * *

"Aye, we saw 'em," Rotison grunted, gesturing to the chaos around the group of chieftains. "Got anythin' useful?"

"Yes," Heather replied shortly, not liking his confrontational attitude but knowing this wasn't the time to comment on it. "Einfari and I counted the ships, and it's not the full might we expected. He only brought thirty-six warships." That made a difficult fight far more doable, and they had hastily checked two days sailing out in every direction, so she knew the other half wasn't coming.

"Good," Mogadon said eagerly. "Our ships'll be ready. Wha' about yer dragons? Got any close enough to rain Hel like ye've been promising?"

"I've promised nothing, personally," Heather clarified, "and we didn't get much warning. The two already on-island will be helping, but the earliest any others can be here is midnight." The attacking fleet would probably strike at dusk so as to mix with the enemy before Night Furies could fly and strike under the cover of true dark, so aside from Einfari and Berg, they were on their own until then.

"There'll still be plenty to do then," Bertha reassured her. "How many are we getting?"

"At least three." Berg hadn't relayed who was coming, either, because Fishlegs hadn't known who was capable of going anywhere, between patrols and hatchlings that needed tending. It really wasn't important yet; they'd make do with whoever showed up.

"Well, it'll be close," Sigvard said hurriedly, looking back at the docks. "What do you and your two dragons plan on doing when the fighting starts?"

"Whatever we can. I'll know more when things kick off." She looked at each of the Chieftains in turn, from Rotison to Sigvard, taking in stony, determined faces that she suspected hid more tension than she could see. "Good luck, everyone."

"Aye, you as well, lass," Mogadon grunted, hefting his large sword and placing the flat of the blade against his shoulder. "To victory or Valhalla!"

* * *

Heather couldn't help but shudder at the all too familiar fleet now nearly within reach of the allies defending Mahelmetan. Seeing it like this, approaching a place she knew well enough, bent on destruction and death, was all too potent a reminder of the home she had lost long ago.

'Fishlegs says the back ships are up to something,' Berg roared, flying near her and Einfari, high above the conflict about to begin. 'See how they're not sailing as quickly? He thinks they are going to turn.'

"I see it," Heather agreed, forcing herself to forget her past for the moment. She hadn't even seen the destruction of her home. Just the all too informative aftermath. She could put it aside for now.

'Remember where the spies put in?' Einfari volunteered, looking back at Heather, her grey eyes narrow and focused. 'They might go there, and try to attack from behind.'

'That's what Fishlegs thinks,' Berg agreed. 'He says we should do our best to help out here for a while, and then go to the other side to interfere with that.'

"That's great, and you can thank Fishlegs for me," Heather called out, "but we're here and he's not. I don't think it's smart to take orders from him." She didn't resent Fishlegs for offering advice, and Berg was welcome to follow it, but she and Einfari were going to do what they thought most useful and worth the risk. There wouldn't be time to obey orders from second-hand sources in the midst of battle once things kicked off.

'Got it!' Berg barked, angling himself downward. 'It's starting!' Far below them, the first ships of the front of the attacking fleet were beginning to exchange catapult fire with the front of the defending ships, rocks slamming into both sides. They were too far up to hear any of it, but the rocking of ships and bodies falling into the water was enough to imagine the rest.

Einfari followed Berg down, diving shallowly as she lined herself up. 'It is good Berg has advice on his side. I do not think he was ready for this to happen on his shift.'

"Well, he came out here," Heather muttered, squinting against the wind. "He's going to help."

By unspoken accord, Einfari pulled out in front of Berg as they came closer, taking the lead and choosing a target. The ships weren't firing their catapults anymore, too close to risk it, and were instead lowering boarding planks and engaging face to face. Vikings didn't _do _ranged combat, even in naval battles. Not only was it less honorable, it tended to destroy valuable and hard to replace warships, which would cripple opportunities for more honorable death and glory in the future.

Heather felt a grim smile cross her face as Einfari began the trademark Night Fury screech. Dragons had no such stupidity to hamper them.

Two powerful blasts of blue fire shot out in unison and slammed into one of the Berserker warships, crippling the sail and tearing a jagged hole in the deck, the concussive force of their detonations doing more damage than the actual heat of the fire; flames flickered and died out on the deck as buckets of water were quickly emptied-

But, Heather saw as they pulled out of their dive, twisting in the saddle to watch, the mast Einfari had struck was not within reach. The flames caught and grew there even as it toppled over, broken halfway up its length. The ship they had targeted hadn't yet engaged but was about to, and the falling mast gave the Meatheads who were closest a large window of opportunity, if they were smart enough to take it-

And then Einfari was jerking around, and Heather had to hold on and face front. "Good?"

'Good,' Einfari said, flipping her tail up and forcing her body to angle back up. 'Shots fired?'

"Few if any," Heather reported. "They weren't paying attention." They both knew that this first strike would involve relatively little danger; there were only two dragons, and dozens of enemy targets. Every individual ship would have considered themselves in far more immediate danger from the Viking aspect of the defense and paid less attention than they should.

Now, after one dual strike had badly crippled a warship, they couldn't count on that dismissal anymore. But Einfari had seven shots left, as did Berg, and they were going to use at least four here.

Even as Heather got around to thinking that, she noticed that they were turning, losing their momentum in the air, almost falling sideways, and she knew that they were diving again already. She clung to the saddle and tried to keep her eyes open, acutely aware that her role in this was relegated to what she could observe and think, no more. Her bow, quiver, and ax were all useless here; firing off of a moving dragon was far beyond her skill level, if it was even possible.

Another building shriek, the setting sun in front of them partially blinding Heather for a moment, and then a second set of shots at another similarly vulnerable ship. They pulled out lower, Einfari mistiming her maneuver-

Heather jerked back as a blur of motion sprang up right in front of both of them just as they leveled out, coming up in front of Einfari's left wing and continuing up, missing by the barest of margins. Einfari jerked to the side in a belated evasive maneuver, Heather almost fell out of the saddle in shock, and then they were over friendly ships.

The shock wore off and Heather let loose a torrent of curses she had picked up over the years, lacking any other more productive outlet for the burst of fear-driven energy that was flooding her.

'I'm fine!' Einfari interrupted her. 'That was the only one that came close. Just a lucky shot. Calm down. I will pull out sooner next time.'

"Too close," Heather managed, clamping down on the urge to keep cursing. She was already feeling embarrassed by the outburst, so she wanted to just move on as if nothing had happened. "Definitely pull out sooner. And pick more varied targets, ships that aren't just like those two. Where's Berg?"

'Right here,' Berg called out from above. 'I didn't really understand what you said before.'

'Neither did I,' Einfari agreed, 'but I got the idea. We need to be more careful next time.'

* * *

Astrid stared at the distant attack going on in front of the docks, wishing she were there. It had been her idea to lead the second prong of the assault, the one that circled around, came through the miserable excuse for a forest, and stormed the village, but that was before she had known the Night Furies wouldn't fly straight for the untouched part of the armada, instead choosing to strike in the midst of the carnage unfolding in front of the docks.

If she were there, she would have tried to get at the dragons even now circling around for their third strike. But they would come to her, soon, once people started dying. Even at this distance, she could see the silhouette on one of those dragons, which meant it had to be Hiccup, or Maour. He would never stand by while she slaughtered the women and children cowering in their village.

"How long?" she gritted, looking back at Gobber.

"I'll check," he volunteered, for once completely sober. He turned to the soldiers crowded up on the deck, waiting impatiently. "'Ow long?" he bellowed.

"We'll get there jus' after sundown," someone replied respectfully, hidden in the crowd but still wary of her wrath. As he should be; she had taken care to ensure none of the Berserkers under her control so much as questioned her decisions. Gobber was the only one allowed to do that, and him only because she needed a check to ensure her insanity didn't trip her up. It was easy to remember that; Gobber's presence was an essential part of making sure her hunts did not fail.

"Good," she said, tapping the stake she had long since sharpened to a perfect point on the deck, taking care not to blunt it. The stake had already tasted dragon rider blood once, and she was going to make sure it did again. Her ax was meant for killing, but her stake would be coming along, just in case she got a chance to drive it into either kind of enemy.

And she _would _get that chance; she and her detachment of elite Berserkers were going to wreak havoc and death until someone came to try and stop them. Just as soon as they reached the village…

Astrid's portion of the fleet sailed on, not yet under any sort of attack, approaching the back end of the island. The sun was dipping below the horizon, colored a fitting red and casting long, ominous shadows out over the water and island.

* * *

'Do not try and go any faster, son,' Cloey admonished, looking over at Toothless as they flew. 'We must pace ourselves. It will do no good to arrive too worn out to do anything but watch.'

'I know, sorry,' Toothless roared back, using a bit more volume than was necessary out of frustration. He knew this route, and had flown it many times. The trackless ocean was boring and made time go slowly at the _best _of times; now, it was torturous.

"She's right," Maour sighed. "I don't like it either, but still. We're not going to get there first, anyway."

'Yes, yes, I know, the Myrkurs left before we did,' Toothless grumbled. He was feeling a little inadequate, if only because the Svarturs were probably the last family to send their contribution to the fight. He didn't know what the Nótts had done, or how fast they had reacted, but the painfully long discussion over who to send in the Svartur caverns had certainly given them a head start.

'Only because they did not have a hatchling to worry about,' Cloey reminded him.

'The Eldurs left before us too,' Toothless objected. 'They have theirs.'

'Two hatchlings, then,' Cloey growled. 'Stop complaining. I know you're worried and anxious. I am too. Do not take it out on me.'

"She's right," Maour agreed reproachfully, echoing himself.

'Sorry,' Toothless whined. He didn't really know what was wrong with himself; he'd flown to battle or at least dangerous situations before and handled it just fine. The only difference this time was that it was a fight they had anticipated for months… And they were still late.

* * *

"This stinks," Fishlegs complained, leaning back against the cavern wall. "Why do I have to stay behind?"

'You are a connection to the battle. We must have information as quickly as we can,' Skarpur admonished, not even looking over at him. She was sharpening her claws against the base of the pillar in the vertical central cavern, drawing them across the unyielding stone over and over again in slightly different directions.

"I know, but-"

'I had to stay behind with Joy,' Skarpur interrupted. 'Myrkurheili will return from his patrol tonight to find he missed it all by mere chance. Eldurfjall has to stay with his hatchling and wait for news, and so do Skuggi and Von. Be grateful you at least can see what is happening and do not have to wait for an irritatingly whiny Viking to relay information like the rest of us.'

"Point taken," Fishlegs gulped, eyeing her increasingly sharp claws and severe expression. "Where is Nótthljóður, anyway?" he asked, hoping to change the subject.

'Contemplating pouncing on you and gnawing until you stop whining,' Skarpur said tonelessly, her eyes flicking up to something above Fishlegs. 'But she will not if she wants to be allowed to be here and listen to you tell of the battle.'

A distinctly disappointed whine echoed out from a ledge above Fishlegs' head, and he only barely stopped himself from looking, somehow knowing that looking up and cringing would only tempt the young dragon to disobey her mother anyway. After living with Night Furies for five years, he had a good idea of what would tempt her. Acting like frightened prey definitely made the list.

'And speaking of the battle…' Skarpur prompted.

"Right, right." Fishlegs closed his eyes and let his senses drift over to Berg, accessing hearing and sight. He knew his friend was taking a breather, perched atop one of the tallest buildings in the village, which gave a good overview of the battle.

The sun was almost below the horizon, casting immensely long shadows and coloring everything with a red tint. The ships of their allies had formed a semicircle around the docks, and from here he could see that said circle was holding admirably, the portion of the attacking fleet that had engaged stuck on the outside, Vikings fighting aboard every ship. The combat seemed balanced for the moment, forces equally matched, though there were a few ships of reinforcements coming on their side of things, filled with a few reserve troops, and more than likely some Mahelmetans who couldn't stay away from the fray, regardless of their Chief only pledging to defend his own island.

"The fighting is going well," he reported to Skarpur. "The blockade is holding, and it doesn't look like we're losing."

'What of the other front you told me was going to come soon?' Skarpur asked.

Fishlegs could see said other front out of the corner of Berg's field of view, so he didn't have to ask his friend to turn and look. "Still on its way, it'll be there soon. But Heather told Rotison, and his people are ready. Berg and Einfari are going to go see what else they can do once the enemy makes landfall, because that's when they'll be most vulnerable and-"

'Spare me the logic, I know it,' Skarpur cut in. 'How does my daughter look? Tired?'

"Not very?" Fishlegs guessed. It was hard to tell, if only because Einfari was hunched over Heather, the two planning their next move on a nearby rooftop. All he could see of her was her back, and that betrayed little to nothing of her physical state. "She's not hurt."

'I wish I had a connection to her directly,' Skarpur murmured. 'But I must trust she will know her limits. This is not her first fight, though I almost wish it was, given how stupidly reckless her first few fights were.'

"Do you want me to have Berg tell her that?" Fishlegs offered, hoping she didn't take him up on it. Now didn't seem like the time for it, but he knew better than to ignore Skarpur and hope she was just idly talking. She was a Nótt, and everything they did had a purpose of some sort, even if said purpose never became clear.

'No, no distractions,' Skarpur replied. 'Joy, come down here.'

Though his other senses focused on his dragon, Fishlegs flinched as he distantly heard an impact nearby; he knew all too well that the fledgling in question had probably only barely missed landing on him.

'I want to go,' Nótthljóður complained to her mother.

'So do I, but we both get to stay this time,' Skarpur replied gently. 'Next time, you will get to stay with Togi, or maybe your brother.'

'Not Einfari or Heather?' Joy asked, sounding confused even to Fishlegs, who was only half listening, more interested in the battle unfolding in front of Berg's eyes.

'This is Heather's fight more than anyone's,' Skarpur sighed, 'and I would rather support Einfari in supporting her than oppose Einfari, when I know she would find her way to the fight anyway.'

'Huh?'

'Heather needs to fight, and Einfari needs to help her survive it,' Skarpur rephrased. 'I don't want to try and stop either of them. It would do no good. You understand?'

'Yes, now I do,' Joy agreed. 'I need to go fight too?'

'That only works with older daughters,' Skarpur rumbled. 'Younger daughters get to stay and be protected.'

Fishlegs started as Berg's perspective abruptly shifted, and focused on hearing what was occurring around him, not his own body.

'It is time,' Einfari was saying, turning and letting Heather back onto the saddle. 'Berg, are you with us?'

'Do I have a choice? I have six shots right now,' he offered. 'We could wait until I have all eight back-'

"There's no waiting, we need to strike and bloody them when they're getting off their ships," Heather interrupted. "So, now is the time."

'Okay, on it,' Berg conceded, leaping up into the air. 'Fishlegs?'

"Right here," Fishlegs replied. "Help is on the way, you know. Don't do too many risky things."

'This is practice,' Berg rumbled confidently, following Einfari over the island. 'Unless we destroy them so badly here none will ever come back for more.'

"Yeah, I don't think so, there's still half a fleet to worry about," Fishlegs recalled worriedly. He didn't like that almost as much as he didn't like not being able to help Berg out in person. Even if he wasn't a fighter, he could do something useful. Surely, there would have been something. Next time… If there was a next time.

_**Author's Note: **_**Shorter chapter, but only because I didn't want to try and cram the entire battle into one this time around. Next one's going to be chaotic, to say the least, though I don't plan to jump perspectives quite so much as this chapter. This one was a lot of summing up and accounting for, so as to set the stage and not leave annoying and plot-unimportant questions such as 'well, who's flying to the rescue?' or 'where, exactly, are Dagur and Astrid?' hanging. Neither of those is meant to conceal a twist, so I didn't want to leave them vague.**

**Oh, wait, I lied, one of those two **_**does**_** conceal a twist despite what you got to see. Oh, well, I guess you can wait and see what it is!**


	36. Chapter 36

Camicazi didn't like pitched battles. She preferred stealth and ambushes, encounters where her slim form and lack of strength weren't important. Pitched battles were the worst.

That didn't mean she couldn't have fun with it, though. She sawed her knife through a slack sail line on one of her tribe's ships and handed it off to a nearby warrior. "Take this," she instructed. "Hold on tight, and try to stab someone on the way down."

"I'll get more than you," the woman declared, taking her rope and awkwardly shuffling off to the side. The oversized mace dangling from her belt probably unbalanced her, but now was not the time to chastise bad weapon selection. If she could use it, she could have it.

The wind blew, and Camicazi focused on severing the next rope, looking up to be sure she wasn't about to bring the sail down on them. Her mother would be furious about the damage she was doing to the ship, but all would be forgiven afterwards so long as the sails remained up. Hopefully.

"Drinks on me for the one with the most kills," the other woman declared loudly, taking the offered rope.

"If we live through this," Camicazi chipped in briskly, taking the last cut rope for herself and tugging at it to be sure it wasn't loose. The choppy water between their ship and the Berserker vessel that had pulled alongside them was looking far more dangerous from up here, and a dunk in the ocean wasn't the point of all of this.

"Losin' your nerve?" one of them asked quietly. "Ye know the Chief wanted ye behind the line of battle on _our _side."

Camicazi shook her head. What kind of up-and-coming leader would back down from her own idea? It wasn't _that _dangerous; there were only a few large, slow Berserkers stopping their people from swarming over and taking the ship, and a couple of knives to the back would solve that problem with far less bloodshed than an outright charge, which her mother would soon be attempting.

"Alright then," her guard conceded. "See ya over there!"

A quick hop off the beam later, the three of them were taking a short airborne trip over enemy lines. She was thankful she had gotten a taste of riding dragons; compared to that, this was nothing. She let go as she flew into the enemy's sail, rammed her knife through the canvas, and held on tight to slow her fall while conveniently crippling the ship so it couldn't go anywhere.

The descent was rapid and bumpy; the larger women to either side of her were pulling the sail far more violently in their own slide downward, and she was too light to ignore the ripples they sent through the tough fabric.

Then she was falling freely, the sail having run out. She pulled away at the last moment, angling her descent and hoping she would hit right. A few broken bones were ignorable but not desirable if she could help it.

The pile of rope she had aimed for wasn't soft, but it did the job. She jumped up immediately, a knife in either hand, and ran for the nearest fat Viking jeering across at the Bog Burglar ship.

_This _was what she was good at. She stabbed him in the back of the knee and then the back of his neck as he fell, just as she had always been taught. Around her, other Berserkers were falling to similarly brutal ambush strikes, and the few remaining turned away from the Bog Burglar ship in an attempt to meet the ambush in their midst.

She grinned savagely at that; the whole point of this was to get their attention. Boarding planks began to span the gap the moment the last Berserker had looked away, special constructions made to be light thumping down onto the deck with muted impacts, cloth at the end dampening the sounds. Reinforcements would be across in seconds.

Those seconds were going to be dicey, though. She reluctantly stepped back and let her guards take care of fending off the remaining men; they were already back to the normal form of war, in which her small and light frame was a liability. Too bad.

Soon, the ship was devoid of living, conscious defenders, and Camicazi faced her mother. In the background, the noises of war were punctuated by angry, deranged screams from a certain insane Chieftain somewhere on a nearby ship. It wasn't the _best _time or place to be facing the music, though she could hope that her mother would feel rushed and go lightly on her.

"It worked, so I'll just say next time ye do somethin' like that, take more with ya," Bertha said angrily. "Ye'll be cleanin' out the decoy huts next raid. Alone."

"You assume we'll live to see that," she chirped. That was a harsh punishment, but who cared? Certainly not her. The badly-hidden pride behind her mother's anger was more than enough compensation.

"Don' joke," her mother responded somberly. "It ain't gonna be easy. This isn't over, and the Furies are busy over there." She pointed over Camicazi's shoulder.

"Over where?" Camicazi turned to look back at the island, confused. She _had _noticed a distinct lack of explosive blasts but had assumed the two dragons were just out of fire for a while. There didn't seem to be anything going on in the village; it was still lit and the docks were still barricaded and manned, the natives ready to make a stand if the line didn't hold.

"Exactly," Bertha grunted. "They flew off, and that girl isn't one to flee a fight, which means there's more fight to be had somewhere."

Well, she couldn't argue with that. It was too bad there was absolutely no way to get to the island from here in any decent amount of time; Camicazi would have liked to go find out what the Night Furies were doing. It sounded like they might need them back sooner rather than later.

* * *

"Careful, they might be expecting a run on the ships," Heather called out. She didn't know who was in charge of the strike force currently landing on the back end of the island, and if it was someone with more sense than insanity, anticipating a strike at one of their more vulnerable moments was more than likely.

'We're doing it anyway, right?' Berg asked, flying beside Einfari as they closed in on the targets. As they spoke, gangplanks were being lowered and the first of many Berserkers were setting foot on Mahelmetan.

'Definitely,' Einfari confirmed, tilting her body downward and beginning the final descent. 'Just try to pull out as soon as possible.'

Heather held on tightly through the next few moments, her heart racing as they dove toward the ships. There was no shriek of defiance, and the whine of Einfari cutting through the air with her wings was nothing compared to the shouted orders and noise from the docking ships.

Einfari jerked to the side immediately after letting off her shot, veering away from the ships. Even with that, Heather could hear the arrows whistling around them.

'Still too close,' Einfari huffed. 'And we can't go in for another shot.'

"Why-" She cut herself off as the reason became clear; a row of Berserkers was forming up on the shore, pointing crossbows to the sky. Another run with that waiting would be suicidal…

But they had to do something; a steady stream of Berserkers was disappearing into the forest.

'Are the humans in the nest able to stop this?' Eldurberg called out, rejoining them. 'Because mom would kill me if I got myself killed here. We can't go again.'

"Not this many," Heather reasoned, thinking of the defenses, which were all aimed to make a stand at the port. An attack from behind would be devastating, not even mentioning the village the Berserkers would probably raze on their way through, and the women and children who would be slaughtered. They needed to stop the Berserkers from reaching the village at all.

'So we stop them,' Einfari said, coming to the same conclusion as they glided over the forest. 'Somewhere along the way. They have to go through this little patch of trees and shrubbery, and then they have to cross a big, open field.'

"If we had a dozen Night Furies we could turn that field crossing into a slaughter," Heather said worriedly, "but two can't do it." The other Night Furies wouldn't arrive for a while yet; they couldn't count on help.

'If the field doesn't work, by extension that means we need to use the forest,' Eldurberg supplied helpfully.

'Neither of us knows fighting well enough to kill them on the ground,' Einfari objected. 'My mother or father could take them all easily, but we would just get stabbed the moment we made a mistake.' She sounded sure of that assertion, though Heather thought that it was a low risk. She wasn't about to question her friend, but it was something to bring up once they were out of danger.

'I know, but that's not what I meant,' Eldurberg explained. ''It's been dry here recently, right?'

'No rain for weeks,' Einfari purred, catching on. 'Lots of dead wood in there, and that which lives is ripe for burning. Plenty on the ground to spread the flames from place to place. Heather, any reason we can't?"

"If Rotison complains, I might consider letting you burn him too," Heather declared. This was war, and the forest was pretty much worthless anyway. "Go for it."

'But do it intelligently,' Einfari added, looking at Eldurberg. 'You go set fire to the border with the field; Heather and I will do the cliffs. If we do it right, we can trap them inside while it burns. And when they get out, we'll blast them out of existence.'

Eldurberg winced at that. 'That's kind of harsh,' he said slowly. 'Why can't we just let them flee and sail away? Maybe they will think twice about trying again.'

'I think you don't need me to answer that,' Einfari replied sternly, circling around. 'But just in case you do, here's why. Every one you let live and escape is one more that might drive a sword through your little sister someday soon.'

'Right, got it,' Eldurberg grunted, turning away and flying down toward the fields.

'Are you going to say I was too harsh just then?' Einfari asked.

"No. He needs to see the stakes." She had seen her village and people destroyed. She wasn't about to fret over trapping some of those same Berserkers in a burning forest. If anything, she would worry about not being able to do so thoroughly enough to actually trap them.

* * *

"I _knew _it'd come in handy," Gobber said quietly, entirely aware that now was not the time but not able to find it in himself to care. He was being quiet, and that was about as much as he could do.

"Shut up," Astrid hissed, jogging past him.

"I'll do wha' I bloody well want," he muttered the moment she was too far away to hear. They were tramping through a dark, scrawny forest on the way to what promised to be a raid like the bad old days. If things were different, he'd already be drunk instead of just pretending.

His peg leg snagged on another cluster of old, dry thorn vines, and he yanked it forward, relishing the thick snapping sounds. He liked this new peg, for all that it was just his normal wooden one with a sword blade embedded in the front; it was great for stomping through the undergrowth. So what if he had 'accidentally' put several particularly annoying Berserkers out of commission while testing it out on the ship? Accidents happen.

Besides, he needed his small victories, given the real reason he was here at all wasn't good for morale. If the dragons didn't have any other tricks up their scaly, nonexistent sleeves, he would be forced to watch the sort of thing that he had always preferred to leave in the bad old days, where it belonged. So far, it looked like Astrid was going to be having the time of her life, and there was nothing he could do to stop that.

Save for one thing… Astrid ran by again, and he made a show of stumbling, contemplating a single, vengeful strike. Nobody would ever know if his knife prosthetic found its way into her back. Accidents happened all the time.

But if he did that, even if he wasn't caught or suspected, he'd almost certainly be either cast out of the Berserkers or relegated to a position of no use in the war, not for the side he meant to support. He owed Hiccup far too much to throw away his position as a spy with almost uncontested power.

Not yet, anyway. Not until he had done his part. Then he could get on with the other reason for all of this. Avenging his best friend. Hiccup, or Maour, as he now liked to be called, wouldn't do it, but that didn't mean it shouldn't be done.

He wished he was drunk. Nothing was stopping them, and according to the scant information they had on the island, there were fields up ahead, which came with unrestricted lines of sight and a fearsome charge. Then there would be pillaging, looting, and far more unsavory things, and the side he supported would have been dealt a terrible blow, the death of allies under their protection-

A faint red glow caught his eye, and he dropped, years of training too far ground into instinct to be dulled by a few more years of relative peace. Several of the Berserkers behind him also dropped, following his lead.

But nothing came of it. He raised his head just high enough to see the flickering light, and tried to determine just what it was.

Not a big dragon, and not a Night Fury; it was normal fire, flickering and slowly growing in the distance. He wouldn't even have seen it in the day, it was so far away. Something from a Terror, maybe? He recalled Maour saying the littlest dragons truly were animals, but that didn't mean they couldn't be used for war.

Terrifying images of packs of Terrible Terrors ripping into men like swarms of gnats on a fresh yak pie assaulted his mind, and he squinted a little harder. He was far too experienced to expect to be spared by the opposing side; allies killed allies on the battlefield by accident without the added complications of spies and traitors.

"You, you, you," Astrid whispered from behind him, crouching just like he was and verbally selecting the three closest men. He hadn't even heard her approach. "Go find out what it is."

Three large Berserkers shambled off toward the light, trying to be stealthy and failing miserably. Gobber was more impressed that they tried at all; it was a measure of how much sway Astrid held over them. Berserkers didn't _do _stealthy.

Astrid _did _do stealthy, or sneaky, or outright tricky, whatever she thought necessary to best kill dragons. She also intimidated the men who often towered over her through sheer force of insanity and authority, so the men under her command didn't really have a choice.

Those men hadn't trained her, though. They hadn't watched her go from an upright, honorable warrior-in-training to unhinged madwoman with few inhibitions and no conscience. She didn't intimidate him, though she did often enrage or worry him.

"More to the other side," someone called out in a rough whisper. Gobber resisted the urge to turn and see; it would do no good, and everyone else would, so somebody had to keep watching the first firelight.

"Tha's jus' a normal fire," someone speculated. "Not a dragon."

Were he actually loyal to the Berserkers, Gobber would have silenced the man with a rap on the helmet and a kindly warning against annoying the psychotic woman hel-bent on ending all things dragon or annoying. He wasn't, so he held his tongue and listened to the hapless man doom himself.

"We should keep goin' while they're not waitin' for us," the man continued, louder now.

"You'll be the first to go anywhere," Astrid said coldly. "First to charge their village. And since you'll be first, you'll need to be fast. You will leave your weapons and your armor in this forest." She sounded as if she couldn't care less, but Gobber knew better. She was not good at controlling her mood swings, whatever Dagur was apparently teaching her, and that was the sound of her control splintering but not quite gone yet.

"Tha's stupid!"

A thick, meaty thud was the next and final sound from that particular Berserker. Gobber didn't mourn his passing; idiots who volunteered to travel with the crazy Chieftess and didn't learn to keep their mouths shut were asking for death, and it was one less Berserker to deal with. If only the rest of the tribe would provoke her in the same way.

The awkward, cowed silence was broken by the noisy return of those she had sent to check the light; they ran without a care in the world, stomping through the forest.

"Fire, everywhere," one of them explained. "Whole forest's burnin' past the hill yonder. We can' see it from here 'cause o' that hill."

"Passable?" Astrid asked tersely.

"If we're quick abou' gettin' there, yeah," the scout confirmed. "It's spreadin' though, and quick. It 'ad to 'ave been set in a couple o' places to get this big this fast."

"'Ow do you know that?" one of the others sent to scout asked skeptically.

"I like burnin' things," was the simple reply.

"We head forward," Astrid declared. "We can get out of this forest before that fire gets anywhere close."

Gobber knew he had to think quickly; this was an opportunity, putting aside the possibility that Hiccup had something trickier planned than hastening their trip through the woods. Gobber wasn't a schemer by nature, but he was pretty sure keeping the bulk of the Berserkers in the burning woods as long as possible was a smart move no matter what was meant to happen. Fire plus enemies made less enemies.

"That's what'll be expected," he interjected, catching Astrid's attention. She listened to him more often than not, and relied on his counsel. He'd be using that tonight. "Like herdin' sheep. Ye always expect 'em to go out the open gate, not over the fence."

"And?" She wasn't glaring at him, which was encouraging. He didn't fear death by her irate hands and ax, but it wasn't out of the question.

"Go to the fire, wait until it's almost too strong to pass, and then go at the last second," Gobber proposed. "They'll think we're dead and leave."

"That could work," she agreed. "Everyone, with me!"

Gobber knew he had to hide the dark grin spreading over his face, so he looked down at his peg leg and gleefully focused on shredding any poor, dry vine that got in his way. The problem with relying on someone else to check one's plans was that the other person might make mistakes too, or intentionally sabotage everything.

* * *

"Ready?" Astrid asked, leaning out toward the crackling inferno despite the painful heat rising off of it. The trees to either side of her were catching fire even now, and Gobber was feeling the heat.

This was it; the forest was burning around them, and while there was an open path back to the ships along the already burnt coast, retreat wasn't on the table right now. A run through just-catching forest was.

His intentionally faulty plan was looking awfully viable now. They could do it, and probably would. He had bought time, and nothing else. That was the problem with sabotage; he couldn't commit to anything, so all his tricks had to be just good enough to avoid suspicion.

A chorus of tense affirmatives rose above the crackling of the flames, and Astrid nodded, her eyes reflecting the fire and twisting it into something disturbing, a light that didn't belong in the gaze of any sane person. Her ax dangled loosely from a strap around her right wrist, and the sharp stake she always carried was grasped tightly in her left hand.

"If you hear a Night Fury fire into the sky even if you can't see it, no warcries, and no quarter given," she instructed, turning her back on them. "If anyone downs a Night Fury or rider, they're mine. I want them alive so that I can enjoy their deaths… But if they look to be getting away, just kill them."

He grimaced at that; it would have been good if she left that last part out. She was too set on killing to make the classic mistake of demanding the enemy alive and captive or not defeated at all.

She stepped away from the inferno for a brief moment, moving as if something had just occurred to her, and gestured to it. "Go!"

The first, bravest and stupidest Berserker ran through the flickering tongues of heat, passing through the catching forest edge. Then the next. They were making it.

"Gobber," she said, pulling him aside as more and more of their strike force left the death trap he had tried to keep them in, "I want you to do something."

This was it. She had seen his deception and was about to order him to attack without weapons, or maybe she would just kill him here. He clenched his good fist, preparing to strike first if that was the case.

But she only spoke, and her words were not what he was anticipating. "If we can't make it to the village without heavy losses, I want you to organize a retreat. Go back the burned-out way."

"Wha'?" He couldn't have been more surprised. His fist unclenched.

"There aren't many dragons here," she explained, the fire gone from her eyes, for the moment mostly lucid. "An easy slaughter is fine, but if it's not going to be easy it would be a waste to force it."

"If I'm organizin' the retreat, what'll you be doin'?" he asked.

"Hunting." She turned away and darted through the closing flames, and he followed as best he could. He didn't know what she meant or what possessed her to speak of retreat now, but he knew what he would do. His conditions for 'not worth the effort' were not the same as hers. It all depended on what happened next.

* * *

'They are not fireproof,' Einfari said, watching the forest burn inward in a shrinking ring. It wasn't that big to begin with, and had been every bit as ripe for burning as they had thought. Somewhere in that shrinking open space, their enemies lurked… Or they were dead already.

"Definitely not." Heather paced all of two steps across the roof of the hut they had landed on, and then turned back again. Her eyes never left the flames in the distance. "I feel like we're missing something. They should have run out immediately."

'They should-' She spotted movement and leaned forward. 'There, by the cliffs.'

Heather was in the saddle in a heartbeat. "All of them?"

'Enough to be a threat.' They had alerted the people of Mahelmetan, and more makeshift reinforcements were being built between the outer row of huts, but it wouldn't be nearly enough to stop a few dozen determined Berserkers. The crowd she could see emerging from the ashes needed to be thinned out.

"Berg is coming in from the water, he sees them too," Heather reported. "Time to blast them to oblivion?"

'Strike hard, strike fast, and get out.' This shouldn't be too hard; they were scattering and running across the open field, clearly intent on reaching the cover the village afforded, but they weren't spread out enough yet, and as long as she got to them quickly, she could do immense damage with a single shot.

She knew better than to grow bored with diving and firing only to pull away again at the last moment, but she couldn't help the growing familiarity. There was no variation in what she did in a battle; it was all quick strikes with fire and nothing else, because her life was too precious to risk on the ground or within range of returning fire-

"Drop!"

She saw it at the same time as Heather; a scattered array of crossbow bolts and arrows soaring up through the air at them. This wasn't like before; they weren't aimed at one place so much as the air itself. Paradoxically, shots _not _aimed were far more dangerous; if she hadn't noticed, she would have flown right into some of them.

A sharp pain in her paw emphasized the danger, and she barked, dropping as much out of instinct as conscious decision, either way deeming the air too dangerous, jolting Heather in the saddle as she transitioned from steady soaring to pounding the ground with every stride. A thin stick snapped off the side of her left front paw, and she ignored the point buried in the pad. It wasn't enough to stop her, and she had more pressing things to think about. Such as how they were going to avoid being mobbed and killed on the ground.

Einfari wasn't _too _worried about that; she had a plan, though she couldn't say as much. There was no time to explain her methods, no time to tell Heather about what her father had taught all his children about sight, cover, and using one's scales to one's advantage. No time to explain that the gently rolling slopes of the field provided the perfect cover if one hunkered low. Heather got the idea, lying down in the saddle as she crouched.

If they couldn't strike from above, they would just have to do it from the ground.

Einfari could easily see the individual silhouettes of Berserkers running, their backs to the flames. However, they could not see her or Heather in the fading light. A dragon on the ground would be just one more nondescript lump to their eyes.

"Eldurberg is still up there," Heather whispered, shifting in the saddle.

'Don't worry about him now.' They were in actual danger; there came a time where one had to trust one's allies to have a small amount of common sense without being led by the nose. Really, she _should _just spring into the air and avoid this confrontation, but she was tired of firing and fleeing. This was safe _enough _as long as they were careful.

"Don't fire. Let me." There was a rustle of wood scraping against wood, and then of tough sinew bending wood just over Einfari's ears.

'Fire on the ones aiming at the sky.' She could see one in front of them, the bulky outline of the crossbow pointed skyward as he ran. It was a clever move, really, but only if one was facing mindless beasts that continued to dive toward those firing indiscriminately. At least they were compensating for their insufficient aim with numbers and randomness.

Heather hummed her assent, a sound that would have made Einfari chuckle if it weren't for the seriousness of the situation and the need to hold absolutely still for Heather. A few moments later there was a harsh, at least to Einfari's ears, twang… And nothing else. The Berserker in question continued to run across the field, passing by their position now.

Another twang; this time one of the men coming more in their general direction stumbled and fell to his knees.

Einfari could hear Heather's unease, her worry and adrenaline; the way her heart beat so quickly and erratically, the way she exhaled with such force it seemed like an intentional act instead of instinct.

Another shaft of wood and sharp ends flew from behind Einfari's head, and the kneeling Berserker fell entirely.

'Good, but don't waste your shots on putting them down,' she advised dispassionately, watching the running figures carefully. She would have to move soon; a clumped-together group was on a path that would run right over them as they were, and revealing their position was asking for trouble. 'One per Berserker as long as he doesn't see you.'

"Good advice," Heather murmured. "We're not taking out very many, though."

'No,' Einfari agreed, creeping along the sloping terrain, low to the ground and slow in her movement. 'But we can take a few.' It was hard to tell for sure, but she thought the fire and aborted firing run had done more than enough to break up the massed charge and render it vulnerable to the hasty defenses the villagers had put up; they had done what they needed to on this front. What they were doing now was just extra, a little more help to those manning the barricades.

She couldn't seem to muster up any significant amount of worry over that, either. The people of Mahelmetan were ready to fight, and nobody expected her to save everyone. These particular people hadn't endeared themselves to her, so she wasn't all that attached to them aside from in the vague, general sense of disapproving of suffering inflicted by evil.

Heather felt differently, though, and Einfari wasn't about to voice her lack of deep regret over their failure to totally avert the attack. It wasn't something one said aloud.

"Einfari," Heather whispered. "See that one?"

Einfari flicked to Heather's vision long enough to get a fix on where she was looking, and then looked for herself. Another silhouette, but one significantly smaller and lighter, sneaking along and watching the sky intently.

"She's far, but not _too _far," Heather continued. "I'm going for it."

'Good luck.' She wasn't about to offer to get them closer; it was either Astrid or Dagur, and either was too dangerous up close to be safely dealt with. If Heather could kill them from afar, good. If not, oh well.

The first shot went wide; Einfari was fairly certain the target hadn't even noticed it. The second came closer; the sneaking, lithe figure stopped and looked around. A distinct ponytail flicked out behind the head, betraying Astrid's identity.

The third shot struck home; Astrid stumbled and clutched her arm. Heather was drawing a fourth when a familiar roar and flame lit the night.

* * *

"Bring me dragon riders and dragons!" Dagur the Deranged screamed, holding up something thankfully unidentifiable from where Camicazi stood. It was round and dripping and about the size of a helmet, which was more than enough to give it away, but she didn't feel like actually seeing it.

"Get to the rear supply ship," Bertha ordered sternly, gesturing with a blunted, bloody sword. "He's coming this way."

"I want to stick him," Camicazi objected. "And he's nowhere close."

"Do as I say," her mother retorted angrily, watching the battle. "I can see how this'll go, and he's gonna aim for you. He knows you're a friend o' Maour."

"Fair is fair, I say," she argued back. "I got Maour into plenty of trouble in the past. I guess it's my turn." Even if her mother was right, she wasn't going to retreat. They were supposed to win this fight, not slowly lose it, and maybe stabbing Dagur would turn the tide. It wasn't lost _yet_; they hadn't even lost most of their people or ships. It just wasn't looking good.

"It's nobody's…" her mother trailed off. A faint but recognizable sound was filling the air.

Camicazi grinned as two blasts of blue fire struck key Berserker ships around Dagur, decimating two crews at once. She couldn't see them, but clearly help had finally arrived… And in the process put quite the hard limit on how far away the Isle of Night could be from here, as she knew Maour would never be able to hold back reinforcements for the sake of preserving secrecy.

"Forward!" Bertha yelled, stomping up to the edge of the ship to yell across to one of her subordinates on another ship. "Push forward! Secure and hold their ships, and leave the reinforcements to the dragons!"

"Finally," Camicazi exhaled. "About time, Maour." Another two bolts struck at the Berserkers, doing even more damage. There was an intelligent, scheming mind behind those shots; she could see how the ships waiting to sail in and overwhelm key defending ships had just been taken out of the fight.

Two more shots. She frowned. Maybe this wasn't proof that the Isle was close enough to supply reinforcements this quickly; there were only two Night Furies striking, and she couldn't even be sure they were different ones from before.

But it didn't matter. She shrugged, flipped one of her knives, and started looking for a way back to the forefront of the battle. The tide had been turned.

* * *

Einfari reflexively shut her eyes as an explosion bloomed into fiery life in front of her; she lost track of everything as another struck behind her, covering her while she flinched.

Once she recovered, she immediately took to the air, trusting that the humans close enough to fire were far more disoriented, and flew up to meet the unexpected relief.

Nóttleiðtogi fell in on her right, and Nóttreiði on her left, the former berating the latter. 'You blinded her on the ground, surrounded on all sides! Think before you strike!'

'I'm sorry, it was instinct! I saw my sister in danger and reacted!' Nóttreiði whined, embarrassed, an emotion she rarely saw displayed so openly when it came to him. 'I'll do better!'

'You will.' Her father looked over at her. 'And you were on the ground why?'

'It was either that or be shot; they fire randomly,' she explained, trusting her father to understand. 'How are you here? Are the others here too?'

'No, they'll be a while yet,' Togi explained. 'Your brother and I were about to go out on patrol when your mother told me of what was going on. We came straight away, helped with the water battle, and then came here when you and Eldurberg weren't there.'

"We can use the help," Heather said, speaking up for the first time since they were ambushed by their own side. Her voice was unusually loud, and Einfari suspected she had been temporarily deafened by the blasts. "I don't know if I got Astrid or not, and they're all running for the village. We should thin them out."

'They're not,' Nóttreiði grumbled. Einfari glared at him, and he glared right back. 'They are turning around now. Look for yourself.'

Sure enough, she could see exactly that; one was yelling something indistinct, and the rest were breaking off their advance, turning and fleeing. There was fighting among the outermost wooden structures, but even as she watched, it died away. This front was all but done for.

'They know we have just arrived and seek to escape to dangerous airspace before we can capitalize on our numbers,' her father summarized. 'The ocean portion of the fight is also ending. We have only arrived in time to trigger the end of the battle.' He sounded dissatisfied with that.

'But it is _an _end, so it's good,' Einfari reasoned. 'Should we strike at them as they retreat?'

'You tell me,' her father replied, 'but do so quickly if you want the option.'

She considered the idea and reluctantly dismissed it. 'They've been smart with their air coverage all night. It's not worth the risk. This might even be a ploy to bait us into making ourselves vulnerable.'

'And the Eldurs consider themselves the most intelligent of us,' Nóttreiði scoffed. 'So much for that.'

As they watched, Eldurberg dove down and made a firing run on a retreating group of Berserkers. A hail of sharp bolts and arrows rose to meet him, he dodged-

And fell with a shriek, one of his wings folding inward while he was still in the air. He hit the ground and bounded upright almost immediately to flee to safety.

Einfari observed all of this in a detached way, feeling strange. Moments ago they had been in the thick of an ongoing fight with no end or victory in sight, but now she was gliding with her father above a battle they had definitely won. She felt like she had been yanked out of one world and thrust into another where everything was different. Things looked different from afar. Eldurberg was clearly safe; there weren't any enemies close enough to harm him.

"I don't see Astrid," Heather said. "I don't know what happened to her."

'Maybe one of the blasts killed her?' It would be nice if that were true, but she knew it probably wasn't. Aside from the fact that it just felt too easy, which she knew was a flaw in her reasoning because real life didn't care whether something _felt _like it should be harder, the blasts had struck far too close to her to reach Astrid.

'I see a human from the wooden caves waving for us,' Nóttreiði said sourly. 'We can just stay up here, right father?'

'No, remember what I said. We are cooperating with our human allies, not ignoring them and doing our own thing. That always leads to catastrophe.' Togi fixed his son with a stern look. 'You promised me you would try and do better.'

'And I will,' Nóttreiði huffed. 'Let's go.'

Einfari hummed curiously. 'That,' she said quietly, meaning her words for Heather alone, 'is promising.'

"Togi's trying to make him change," Heather agreed. "I guess now is a good time. The fight's pretty much over on this end."

* * *

Nóttleiðtogi and Nóttreiði convened just off the docks in a small clearing that Heather suspected usually housed trade goods from newly-docked vessels. It was currently empty, but the stray ropes and empty barrels off to one side told the story well enough.

She couldn't care less about the place, aside from being sure there weren't any hidden Berserkers waiting to spring out at them. What she cared about was the smoldering fire that threatened to explode if she wasn't careful. Togi and Nóttreiði were in the middle of a human village.

She almost couldn't comprehend the sight of Togi slinking along the edge of a hut; it just didn't seem right to see him with a backdrop of undeniably human nature. He certainly seemed as ill-fitted to the place as she thought he should be; he looked ready to flee or burn everything to the ground the moment someone looked at him the wrong way.

He looked afraid. She didn't like seeing his fear, his lingering trauma. It felt like a private thing, not one that should be on display in front of callous, uncaring Vikings. Seeing him like this made her feel… Protective was the only word for it, though he was more capable of _doing _the protecting if any needed to be done.

Nóttreiði, on the other hand, just confused and worried her. He seemed more at ease, less viscerally bothered by his surroundings, but she didn't need Einfari to tell her that under the surface, he was nowhere near as calm as he seemed. He slunk along behind his father, emulating the older dragon.

In contrast, Eldurberg couldn't be more unconcerned by their surroundings, both at ease with the humans and more worried about something else. He was muttering to himself from behind Einfari, presumably speaking to Fishlegs and probably Eldurhjarta, his injured wing spread out to the side, displaying a small hole near the tip.

The Chieftains were gathered on the other side of the small clearing, Rotison facing the other four belligerently. Heather slipped off of Einfari, feeling it her duty to at least try to bridge the gap, metaphorically speaking. Her tribe was a part of this too.

"Welcome lass," Mogadon grunted as she joined the huddle. "Tell me, what'd ye think o' the battle?"

"Mogadon," Bertha scowled, "we already told you why."

"I wanna hear 'er opinion. They fled the moment the tide turned in our favor!" he thundered. "Berserkers don' just turn tail an' run!"

"They do when it's a strike of opportunity gone bad," Aldir retorted. "This wasn't their full strength, and they know they've got another chance. They bloodied us, tested our strength, and then pulled out. It's obvious." He had a bloody wound under a soaked bandage on his forehead, and seemed aggravated.

"They're Berserkers, they don' do retreat," Mogadon stubbornly retorted. "Not wit' lunatics at the helm."

"I agee," Sigvard interrupted. "We should check the island over for forces hiding out. It would be just like them to strike the moment we lower our guard."

"Aye," Bertha agreed, sounding thoughtful. "But all mine are needed to salvage the fleet. Unlike _some _o' us, all of mine are passable at carpentry, and there's lots to be done."

"It's their island," Mogadon said, pointing at Sigvard. "Let 'em search it."

"We're busy clearing the roads and making sure the village is safe. You have extra men, you do it."

"I'll go," Sigvard volunteered. "I'll take a few men and check the coastlines right now. Send some o' the dragons to scout the ocean, check for sneaky doubling back. A lot of their ships are leavin' slowly. Bu' I want a dragon wit' my search crew."

"Why?" Heather asked skeptically. "You'll be checking from the ground."

"To be blunt, lass, I wan' one so that my men can see 'em pullin' their weight in this war," Sigvard grunted. "I been hearin' complaints. This'll set 'em at ease."

"Fine. Einfari and I will be checking over the back end of the island," because she still hoped to confirm whether Astrid lived, and that was where she would have gone to get off the island, "so…"

"So?" he prompted.

"Give me a moment." She left their huddle and approached Togi, who flicked his ears and nodded.

'I heard and understood,' he said without preamble. 'It would be best if you went, but barring that, do not send Eldurberg. He cannot fly if the need arises.'

"That's what I thought, but that leaves you or Nóttreiði, and I don't know if either is a good idea."

'One of us,' Togi confirmed. 'Nóttreiði, you will go with the humans checking the coast. Remember your promise.'

Nóttreiði growled loudly, but hung his head when his father glared at him. 'I must walk with them?' he asked.

'Just that. Sniff out any hidden enemies for them, if you can, but don't get too far from our allies.' The danger of Astrid hiding out and leaping upon an unsuspecting, lone Fury could not be ignored. She was crazy enough to stay on the island and risk her life for something like that.

'I do not understand them,' Nóttreiði said. 'And I do not want them touching me.'

"Understood." She hadn't seen Nóttreiði in a few months, and clearly his father had been working on his attitude, so she knew she _shouldn't _be surprised, but she still was. It seemed Einfari was just as surprised judging by her disbelieving bark.

'I have been working with him,' Togi said dryly in response to his daughter's surprise. 'Do not undo that work by mocking him.'

'It's not mockery, it's pleasant surprise,' Einfari said sheepishly. 'Heather and I are checking the retreating ships for trickery, and Nóttreiði is going to scope out the shores. What about you?'

"I am going to fly over the island and see what there is to see. It feels like something more is soon to come."

Heather nodded, feeling the same in the pit of her stomach. This didn't _feel _over.

* * *

'Act like a Nótt,' Nóttreiði said to himself, walking alongside humans he didn't know and didn't care to know. 'Keep an open but calculating mind. Don't assume.'

He had more such lines, thanks to his father, but these were the most applicable if he wanted to be smart and not stupidly blind, if he wanted to make his father proud instead of guilty and ashamed.

He shouldn't be guilty; Nóttreiði considered his failings _his_, not his father's. He was fairly certain his father knew that and didn't care, but it was the truth.

He _would _make his father proud. Even if that meant sucking it up and patrolling alongside a bunch of humans that made Heather seem positively innocent and clean by comparison. He stalked alongside them instead of behind mostly to avoid the smell. It was comparable to that of a hatchling if said hatchling was raised in a waste pit and doused in blood, and somehow didn't smell like vulnerable innocence and family.

Yes, Heather was fine in comparison. He was sure driving that in was one of his father's many reasons for sending him along.

The group of men and one distracted dragon rounded the edge of a cliff, and one of the men leaned over and looked down. He called back to his companions, and they moved on. Even not being able to understand their words, he understood the message; nothing was there.

Nóttreiði wished he _could _understand the humans; they were talking now, and for all he knew they were plotting his demise-

But no, he had absolutely no proof of that. Looking at it logically, they had all the reasons in the world to stay on his good side, and absolutely no reason to risk hurting him. It was known that they had left with him, and no lie would stand up to his father's wrath or his sister's persistence… And Heather would help them uncover the truth.

He did believe that; it was hard not to when his father was so adamant about throwing away his preconceptions and starting again when it came to her. He had avoided her in the days they spent together, back before she had come here to represent the pack, but even that wasn't enough to avoid noticing just how _normal_ she acted.

Not normal like everyone else. Normal for a Nótt. She schemed in little ways, saw through the motivations of others, but never turned it against anyone in the family in any way other than harmless and playful, which was fine.

Nóttreiði didn't know what he thought, or really who he was, but he did know he was getting there. Trusting his own reasoning, not hating blindly, acting like a Nótt… That was him. Even if he didn't like most humans, and never would, these were fine.

They crested another small hill and looked down on yet another cliffside, this one with a little path. There was a small ship anchored at the bottom, and figures moving on it.

Nóttreiði crept over to the edge, turning his back on the humans he was with, and looked down on the enemy, wondering what they were up to.

Then a sharp biting pain introduced itself to his tail. He whirled to snap at the offender and something heavy slammed into the back of his head.

* * *

'They really are going slowly,' Einfari observed, gliding high above the water and the retreating fleet. 'I don't see why, though.'

'The island's interior is clear, and there are no large ships anchored anywhere,' her father agreed. 'I don't see a reason either, unless they expect some insurgent hidden on the island to steal a small vessel and come out to meet them.'

"Not happening; the docks are crawling with our people, and they have Eldurberg to fire on anyone that needs blasting. No ship can sail fast enough to escape that." Heather shrugged her shoulders. "But maybe they don't know that. Maybe they're waiting for a ship we already sank."

'Or maybe they are waiting for one we didn't see,' Einfari countered. 'We should fly around the island again, close to the water this time. It might be hidden from above.'

'I see no problem with that,' Togi rumbled, turning back to the island. 'It is not as if we can get close enough to do any damage. Tell me about that.'

'Them firing on us as we dive to shoot?' Einfari asked.

'Yes, that.'

'There's not much to tell.' She shrugged her wing shoulders. 'They fling sharp objects into the air, either at us or at random, and we don't have stiff scales, so one hit could down us. We have to be very careful.'

"It doesn't help that we're not experienced in combat," Heather added. "I bet Maour and Toothless could do way more than we can. Toothless would know how to avoid getting shot out of the sky, even if it does boil down to not being seen and not sticking around."

'We also might do better with more dragons,' Einfari mused, thinking about the problem. 'There were only two of us; they could keep track of our locations and save their projectiles. If there were many of us, they couldn't do any of that.'

'My thoughts exactly, though they could very well down a few of us even then,' Togi huffed. 'I think the optimal strategy is to strike when they cannot spare the attention to watch the sky. Send in the human allies first, and then attack once the fight begins. That is something to do next time.'

They were flying around the island now; Einfari eyed the beach where the invasion ships had landed, now empty of anything but dried blood and splinters from the few shots they had managed to get off.

'Striking from pure darkness, or when eyes are too busy to notice us,' Togi huffed. 'It is good that we have the humans. This isn't a war we'd win on our own.'

"That was the idea," Heather agreed.

'Starting a war we couldn't win without help?' Einfari quipped, hoping to get Heather's mind on the lighthearted side of things before she started thinking about how she _had_ in a sense started all of this.

"Sure, in an epic plot to bring dragons and humans together with a common enemy," Heather deadpanned, for a moment sounding very much like Maour in tone if not voice. "Somehow I think there would be less bloody ways to do that if that was the plan."

'Speaking of plans, I see something,' Togi growled. 'A small ship, there. Humans on a path up the mountainside.'

Einfari looked where her father was staring and saw what he was speaking of. Two groups of humans on a narrow path, a wriggling mass covered in canvas in the grips of the ones closer to the ground, no fighting yet.

"A hostage?" Heather guessed. "They probably want safe passage off the island."

'But they are not moving…' Einfari could see waving limbs, but from this distance even her good eyesight wasn't enough to make out anything more distinct, and she of course couldn't hear what was going on.

Then a ripple passed among those standing on the path down, the ones closest to the top shoving a dark, limp mass forward. Fear clutched at her heart.

The trade was over in moments, and the human hostage passed over to the traitors who had just given Nóttreiði to the enemy. Einfari felt Heather crouch in the saddle and instinctively leaned into an upward climb-

'No,' her father said in a voice like ice. 'Turn around.'

'Explain or I will not,' she barked stubbornly.

'I see humans looking to the sky. I see contraptions like those you described. I see our only chance to fix this slipping away if we let on that we know.' He had begun slowly but was speaking more and more rapidly with every word. He snarled out, 'Heather, is he alive or dead?'

"How would I know?" Heather cried out, unnerved by Togi's cold yet frantic words. Einfari couldn't blame her; she had never seen her father like this either.

'Reason through it,' he commanded coldly.

"I don't think he's dead," she said slowly, twisting in the saddle to look at the scene. "No, definitely not, they'd just drag his body down the path or throw it off the cliff, not carry it. We can go get him if we're careful, they only have a few dozen men-"

'And they are expecting it; this was a premeditated betrayal,' Togi snarled. 'It is clear to me now. The human alpha brought up the idea of taking a dragon for an excuse. He arranged for a dragon to be on the ground with his people, alone other than that. Now he has exchanged my son for a hostage, someone precious to him. My son is still alive. But he is captive, because I sent him with them.'

"This isn't-"

'It _is _my fault, and it is yours, but we are not the biggest holders of blame, that would be the faithless one who betrayed us,' Togi snapped. 'We have no time. How far are you willing to go to help this family?'

"As far as necessary," Heather said without question, more than a hint of hardness entering her voice. "You're not freaking out because you already have a plan, don't you?"

'I do. Skarpur will have my head for it afterward, and maybe yours for going along with it, but it must be done.' A tremor entered her father's voice with those words, one that betrayed the fragile nature of his calm exterior. 'We must be quick, and we must be deceptive, and we must do what is necessary. I will not allow my son to suffer like I did.' A faint blue glow lit up along his back as he spoke. 'Not now, not ever.'

_**Author's Note: **_**Ugh, this chapter just wouldn't come out right. I hope I've beaten it into shape well enough to be enjoyable; I don't know what it was about it, but something just wouldn't click. Also, in case anyone's bemoaning the lack of concrete, physical action, I'd like to point out that this was only the first of several large-scale engagements. The opening blow, as it were.**

_**Update: **_**And I've gone over it again less than 48 hours later; a small scene has been added, a few little details changed, and some good suggestions taken in the process. For those of you who read the original version, it might be worth going back over again, but it's not crucial. There's only one thing I can think of that's important, and it's just a confirmation of something previously left unknown for no real reason.**


	37. Chapter 37

"So what's the plan?" Heather asked Togi. Her only idea to rescue the bound Nóttreiði was a desperate attack with fireballs blazing. There was no way they could let his captors slip away with him, so she was glad that Togi apparently had some better plan in mind.

'Simple and quick,' Togi responded sharply. 'By logic, we cannot risk him coming into contact with either Dagur or Astrid, as they have the power to order him killed. He is only alive now because those who took him have orders to the contrary.'

Heather nodded in agreement. She understood that; the same could very well be said of her as she alone was spared when her village was sacked because Dagur insisted she was his sister.

'We must save him before their ship reaches the fleet, then,' Einfari growled. 'I see that much. But what is this about Mother not approving?'

'We are invisible in the night,' Togi snapped, banking and leading them down toward the water. They were slowly circling around the lone Berserker warship, which was even now putting out to sea, unnoticed by any but themselves… and the ones who had betrayed Nóttreiði. 'But only so long as we try. They will fire at the slightest warning, so we cannot strike with fire. Not directly.'

'Tell me what to do,' Einfari begged. 'Now isn't the time for lessons, Father!'

Togi sighed, deflating a little. The blue glow had already faded from his back, which didn't exactly instill Heather with confidence. 'You are right. I am stalling. Einfari, you will fly high in the sky and draw attention to yourself and Heather will coordinate this with our efforts on the ship. Fire at nothing, shriek, make noise and light. Heather, you and I are going to approach from low above the water, land on the ship, climb down the side to stay out of sight, and burn a way down into the belly of the ship. That is where they will keep him.'

Now Heather knew why he was stalling; his plan called for her to ride him? And for him to break into a confined, dangerous place with only her for backup? He was right; if they lived through this, Skarpur would have sharp words for everyone involved.

'No arguing,' he continued. 'We need one half of your link down on the ship and the other half in the air to ensure timely distractions, and the only other Fury available is grounded. We cannot wait for the pack to arrive. Heather?'

"I'm in," she immediately agreed. He had asked what she would do to save Nóttreiði, and she wouldn't go back on her commitment now. She didn't really like him, but his family did, and she liked his family…

And if they didn't save him, she would never get through to him. That made her sadder than she would have expected; putting so much time and effort into convincing him to trust, only to have humans capture and kill him just as it seemed he was making progress? Everything else aside, she wasn't going to let that happen, and if this set him back, she would just work all the harder to make up for it.

'This is crazy,' Einfari rumbled, 'but fine. How do you want to do this?'

In response, Togi dipped and flew under her. 'Can you jump?' he called up. 'I will catch you.'

"On it." Heather felt surprisingly little fear at the idea of dropping through the sky and landing on a dragon she had been sure would never willingly carry a human anywhere. She trusted Togi to not just flinch and drop her.

As soon as Einfari had slowed enough, Heather stood, slipped her leg across the saddle to sit sideways and hopped forward, dropping just in front of Einfari's wing. Her boots struck squarely in the middle of Togi's back, but she slipped to the side-

Togi threw his wings up, lightly knocking her back to the middle, and she took the opportunity to throw her arms down around his neck.

'Good,' he hissed, clamping down on a growl so quickly she barely noticed it. 'You're secure?'

"Yes." She wished they had time to go back to the island and try to swap Einfari's saddle around, but Togi might not have been able to stand that anyway. "Just don't do any fancy flips."

'I will try not to,' he rumbled. They turned in the air, facing the ship. In a matter of moments they would be there, and this crazy plan would begin in earnest.

* * *

Togi felt like he was drowning. Worse, it wasn't water choking him and inciting panic. Water could be fled, spit out, or at the very least seen and avoided.

However, Nóttreiði's captivity left him drowning in guilt and fear with no way out. If he fled, if he turned around and shook the weight of the human off his back, the guilt would consume him. If he kept going, the fear would. He was damned either way.

He internally scolded himself for insisting that Nóttreiði go with the treacherous human alpha that had betrayed them. If only he hadn't brought Nóttreiði along at all. Reaching further back, he could have not told his son the story meant to drive home a fear and hatred of humans. From the very beginning, everything that led to this moment originated with Nóttreiði's flawed, failing father.

Right now, it didn't feel like years of working with Maour had accomplished anything. He felt weaker than ever when it came to facing humans and the torments of the past, and he feared that flying into a fight with angry humans in his current state might be a disaster. He didn't feel strong enough.

The counter to that feeling was lying on his back with her arms around his neck, tight but not choking, her relatively cold body a hard, firm weight between his wings, one he carried voluntarily.

This was not something he could have done years ago, and if he could do it now, that meant he had improved. So, he did his best to ignore the lingering doubts about what would happen once the plan began. He would do what needed to be done because failure was not an option, and he was strong enough to endure and succeed.

"You said you're going to burn a way into the ship from the side," Heather murmured in his ear as they flew. "How?" He could hear it in her voice and feel her body tense every time he shivered at the thought of a human on his back, armed with an ax–

He huffed and focused on relaxing. She was trusting him even more than he was trusting her, the frail little thing.

'I feel like I have enough fire for that,' he explained. He really did; only four shots had been used since they arrived, and wood burned to crumbling char quite quickly under a steady flame. He only needed a hole large enough for Heather to slip through; she could go in and free his son while he widened the hole. Then they could quietly slip away in the night, unnoticed and thus not fired upon.

It was a plan relying far too much on luck, but at the same time it could work. It would work. He would make it work.

"Can you feel it?" Heather asked. "Do you know?"

"Know what?" He considered it another sign of his progress that cryptic, quiet questions in a position like this didn't fill him with paranoia and dread. There was a small, almost miniscule possibility that she was about to betray him, but he paid it no heed. She had earned his trust, not his continued fear.

"The story you told me about the nameless female who glowed blue and melted the bars with seemingly endless fire," Heather explained. "You were glowing blue for a moment back there. Is that why we're doing it this way?"

He was? He almost didn't believe her, but she sounded as if she thought he had already known. All he knew was that he felt like his fire would be enough, though now that he thought about it, that was illogical, and not something he should be feeling…

He thought of his son, trapped, injured, tortured and broken as he had been. He felt his internal fire rage, and knew it would be enough.

"Yeah, like that, but stop doing it_ now_," Heather hissed. "It's not subtle!"

He looked down and saw a blue glow reflecting off the water below, and consciously stopped feeling his fire and need. The glow faded. It had only been a tiny fraction of the intensity he remembered, but he hadn't even been trying. It had just happened.

"I do not believe in luck that strong," he murmured. "To discover this now, and to never feel it before?" It felt too good to be true.

"You've glowed before," Heather countered quietly. "Back when you were confronting him about going on the trip, and about humans. I barely saw it, but it was there."

He didn't question why she had never told him; she thought he had known, that it was a conscious choice. His own story made it seem like a conscious choice for the old, nameless female.

"Einfari says they didn't notice," Heather reported a moment later, sounding relieved. Togi made a mental note to teach her some tricks he knew for hiding worry in times of stress; if _he _noticed, then any human probably would.

Later. Right now, he had far more important things to think about. 'Now would be a good time to start the distraction,' he rumbled. They were getting close; he wanted to have just enough time for the humans to begin to react before he reached the ship. There were plenty of good places to latch onto around the edge of the wooden construct, but all required there be nobody looking when he landed, because he would have to land atop the structure and then slide down unless he wanted to rock the entire craft.

Einfari's shriek broke the quiet monotony of the rolling waves, and the figures on deck began moving. Togi could see projectiles flying into the sky, a hail of small, slender objects arcing up from the ship and disappearing amidst the stars, followed a few heartbeats later by many small disturbances in the water around the ship.

He could see how that might be effective; it was an absolute waste of effort when there was no dive bombing dragon, but they couldn't see his daughter and thus wouldn't be able to tell whether she was diving or not until too late. Firing at any hint of imminent attack was a way to work with that limitation.

But it introduced its own limitation, one he had grasped the moment his daughter had first told him of the tactic. They had limited ammo, and even more limited effect against someone anticipating their actions.

He glided in under their noses, so to speak, flying to the most unoccupied part of the deck, just behind the small wooden lump that likely led down below. One heavy flap was enough to counter his forward momentum with almost no sound, and a soft murmur from Heather had Einfari firing randomly in the sky, attracting the attention of all the men on board.

This sort of thing would only work so well the first time; he suspected that these men would never fall for such a trick once they understood they had been fooled. But it only needed to work once; the human traitor would be rooted out, and if he had his way, torn limb from limb in front of everyone else as a deterrent.

That also was for later. He felt Heather's weight slide from his back and backed over the low railing even as she drew her thin weapon and pulled back the flexible part, ready to strike at any who noticed them.

None did, at least for the moment. His daughter had flown lower and was cavorting in the sky directly in front of the ship, still out of striking range but much closer, and visible as a silhouette against the sky.

At another time, he might have had a panic attack at what his daughter was doing, but he knew it was carefully preplanned, and more importantly, he knew that it would last only as long as he needed. The faster he was in and out, the faster they would all be safe.

Togi slid down the side of the ship tail-first, his claws gouging the wood of the deck and sides. He dug in further and stopped the moment his head was a pawlength below the height of the deck, and pushed out just enough to look down, craning his neck to face the wood directly.

"All clear," Heather called down softly. A loud boom in the distance signalled his daughter's continued efforts of distraction.

He wished there were more explosions; he wasn't impressed by how far behind the pack was. While it was true that he and Nóttreiði had left the moment they got wind of the impending fight, and had spent possibly more effort in the trip than they should have, the pack should not have been that far behind. He suspected they had spent precious moments deciding who would go and who would stay, and had not left until all were ready. That would explain the continued delay; he didn't expect them to arrive for a short while longer if that were the case.

They were not needed, though. All that was needed was his fire. His son needed him. There would be no torture, no pain, no captivity. Not for Nóttreiði. Not for the son he had failed in every other way in an attempt to prevent exactly this.

He noticed the blue light rippling down through his chest this time, looking down as he was, and even noticed that his many, many scars glowed brighter, lacking scales to cover them up. It was a strange thing to see his body reacting to something he could barely feel, but he didn't have time to stare and wonder.

He began to breathe fire onto the wood, keeping his flame steady and hot like he was trying to warm a rock for himself to sleep on. It came out far stronger and hotter than normal, and he had to close his eyes lest the light blind him. He couldn't see what progress he was making, which would be a problem.

"Keep going," Heather whispered. "I'm holding a tarp over you to block the sparks. They're all on the far side of the ship shooting in Einfari's direction."

Good. That meant they weren't over here. He stopped for a moment and opened his eyes to examine his progress.

Strangely, the wood around where he was burning hadn't caught yet, though it was scorched and the place he had flamed directly was nothing but glowing ash, bits flaring up and flying all directions with every breeze. There was a small puddle of molten metal to one side of the paw-sized hole, and as he watched it slowly drained off into the bowels of the ship.

He shoved his face forward, heedless of the scorching heat, and jammed his eye up to the hole, looking inside. Flickering torchlight met his vision, and metal bars all around. Nothing was moving inside; he couldn't see his son, and there didn't seem to be any guards, which made sense given the commotion up on deck.

"How long?"

'Some time yet,' he grunted, resuming his flaming, this time aiming down at the bottom edge of the hole he had created. Making a hole large enough for his son to slip through would take quite a while.

"Try to hurry; they're not going to be distracted forever," Heather whispered.

* * *

Every heartbeat was a victory to Heather, one more moment where everything was going right. She just wished she could stop shaking. Her arms were quivering as she held out the tarp over Togi's paws and head, and she felt like she'd collapse if anything actually happened.

She wasn't standing out in plain sight; the small cabin blocked her view of most of the deck. What she could see was around a corner, and only visible by leaning. Einfari's view was more helpful, and from there she could see that nobody was paying any attention to the back of the ship.

She could also hear the Berserkers over the noise of Togi's overpowered flames reducing the side of the ship to ash from where she stood. She was grateful it hadn't gone up in a roaring inferno yet; the heat she could feel made her think that was bound to happen at some point.

The Berserkers were still firing at Einfari, but unlike the initial barrage, now they were bantering. Some were speculating as to what had gotten Einfari so riled up, while others were trying to eke out a little more range by aiming at angles, and were betting among themselves who would hit first. There was an undercurrent of fear because they _were _clearly facing a Night Fury who for some reason had singled them out, but it was slowly being eroded away by nothing actually happening.

Once they grew relaxed enough to look away, Heather was in trouble. She didn't think they'd kill her, because no Berserker ever tried to do that, but they would capture her and bring her to Dagur, and that was almost as bad.

'Heather,' Togi said, poking his head up above the edge of the ship. 'Can you fit through here?'

"Through the hole?" She leaned over the rail and eyed the glowing embers and ash coating the inside of a jagged opening. "I'm not fireproof…"

But it looked doable if she went fast enough, and there was no time to spare. It was either risk the heat or risk sneaking around getting caught. "Hold still," she concluded, swinging a leg over the rail. "I need to sit on your head and slide in."

'Be quick,' he requested, obligingly angling his face and closing his eyes to avoid them being poked by an errant limb.

Heather slipped over the side and slid down, hitting Togi's face and _almost _perfectly sliding down into the depths of the ship.

Almost, because the jagged, searing pain in her back wasn't supposed to be there. She hit the ground with a thud and immediately rolled, scattering the searing wood ash that she had scraped off. The problem was that the hole hadn't been entirely blunt; there were thick splinters stuck through her tunic.

She muffled a scream of agony by biting down on her own hand, rolled onto her stomach, and scrambled to her feet, struggling with her tunic. She tore it off with a strength born of desperation, and heaved a sigh of relief at the bare air on her burns. The splinters had come with her tunic, thankfully.

'Are you okay?' Togi was already back to flaming the sides of the hole, pausing every few moments to look up at the ship above them. 'Hurry. I will only be a few moments.'

Heather nodded, retrieved her bow, quiver, and ax from where they had fallen, slung the bow and quiver across her bare shoulder with a wince, and turned to face the hold. She was standing at the end of a long row of doors, many with bars in front of them, oddly enough. They seemed, at first glance, intended to serve as either cabins or cells, depending on whether the key was with the person residing within or not. She certainly couldn't think of any other explanation for prison doors with locks on both sides.

Luckily, both for her safety and her modesty given she was bare from the waist up, she was alone. Only one of the cells was actually closed and locked, giving her a good idea of where Nóttreiði had to be.

She didn't go to him immediately; it would be impossible to open the cell without a key. Maour had spoken of picking locks, a skill he had apparently learned from Camicazi of all people, but she didn't know how to do that, so she needed a key.

A key like the ones lying on a hook jutting out from the wall to the far side of the corridor. She jogged over to it, feeling very much in danger with every moment spent in the hold, and grabbed the ring, clenching her fist around the half-dozen keys to keep them from clanking together.

'They're still distracted,' Einfari reported. 'But I don't know how long it'll last.'

"Thanks," Heather murmured. "Keep me up to date." She couldn't spare the concentration to check for herself right now. She tucked her ax under her arm and faced the locked cell door, fumbling with the key ring. Of course, none of the keys were labeled in any way; that would be too smart for the Berserker tribe to think of. She slotted one into the lock at random.

Then, embarrassingly enough, she encountered a problem. She knew how keys worked; everyone did. They were to be put in locks and turned. But where she had grown up there were no locks, and she had never been on the 'captor' end of imprisonment. She didn't _actually _know how to tell if she was doing it right. Was this the wrong key, or did she need to turn it harder?

She hedged her bets by deciding to try all of them before resorting to using more force, though she suspected more force would be the answer given the people who had made the lock.

A steady stream of hot ash was falling to the deck over where she had entered, reminding her that Togi was still working at widening the gap. Flames were finally beginning to lick at the wood all around the hole, too. Time was running out.

The third key slid all the way in and turned, relieving her anxiety with a rusty creak. She pulled the bar aside and shoved the interior wooden door open, stepping back the moment she did so. Common sense said Nóttreiði would be restrained in some way, but common sense also said not to trust Berserkers with her life, even by extension.

It turned out she didn't need to worry; Nóttreiði was in no position to strike at anyone. She stepped into the small room, momentarily at a loss as to how to free him.

The Berserkers had taken no chances with him escaping. He was hanging from a series of ropes embedded in the ceiling, his tail drifting across the floor as his body swayed, supported at the hips by more ropes. Every limb but the tail was tied tightly to his body, and a metal muzzle was strapped securely across his face.

His eyes were closed, and for a moment she thought he was dead. Then his chest heaved, and she knew he was just asleep, or more likely unconscious.

"Found him," she called out, leaning back into the corridor. "He's alive, and he looks okay. Just tied up." From the brief look she had gotten, his tail and wings were fine. He wasn't bleeding anywhere. Not like last time.

No, that was probably supposed to come later, when Dagur or Astrid were able to enjoy it. She shuddered and hefted her ax, stepping back into the room to free him. They weren't going to let that happen.

Her first action was to cut him down from the ceiling, both to give herself more leeway with his bonds and to wake him _before_ he could strike at her from panic at seeing her with an ax. Nóttreiði's eyes flashed open the moment his body hit the ground, and he writhed angrily, growling through the muzzle. His struggling didn't stop when he laid eyes on her; he acted as if her presence both wasn't a surprise and wasn't important.

"Stop it!" she ordered tensely, worrying that he would somehow be heard above deck. "I'm here to get you out!"

'Die,' he snarled back at her.

"Oh- Togi!" she called out, realizing that her presence wasn't going to help anything. She couldn't even free him like this; he'd kill her. "How long? I can't set him loose yet."  
'Soon,' Togi's reply began, 'but why not?'

Nóttreiði fell still, his eyes wide and disbelieving, and Heather wondered why they hadn't tried talking to him before any of this. Surely Togi could have contacted him from outside the ship? Though Nóttreiði had been out of it before now, so he might not have heard…

She shook her head, dismissing thoughts of the Night Fury mental communication. "Can you tell him to not hurt me when I cut him loose?" she asked.

'Son, do as I say and let her free you,' Togi ordered, somehow managing to sound exasperated even in the middle of a tense infiltration and breakout attempt. 'She is with me. With us. As you know.'

"I'm not doing anything until you agree," Heather said, crouching by him.

'Do it,' Nóttreiði rumbled uncertainly. His eyes never left her face, not even when she began to take her ax to the many ropes and tarps constricting him. Each one fell with a quiet twang, and his body spilled outward, slowly freed by her ax… And still, he never looked away.

For her part, she kept eye contact as well as she could while working around him. Anything that seemed non hostile was a good sign, and while she couldn't fathom what was running through his mind, it seemed to be in that category.

A clang of metal on metal resounded from behind her just as she was taking her ax to some of the ropes around his front paws; his eyes shifted off of her and widened further, something she would have claimed impossible up until that very moment.

"Wha' 'ave we got 'ere?" a gravelly voice drawled disbelievingly. Heather spun to face a fat, heavyset Berserker who looked as if he had just woken up.

She hadn't checked the unlocked cells. The ones she had noticed seemed equally suited to being cabins.

"Yer the girl tha Chief wants," he said slowly, his eyes drifting down to her chest. She held her ax up and pointed it at his throat, trying to draw his attention back to where it should be. Her, but her in control of the situation… And certainly not the dragon breaking into the hold.

"I want to see Dagur," she bluffed, buying time. "You can't hurt me. He'll throttle you for fun if you do."

"Aye," the man agreed, raising his hands in mock defeat. "I'll jus' shut ya in here and let 'im work it out. No skin off my back tha' way. The reward for bringin' ye _and _a Fury in is more than enough for me."

'No,' Nóttreiði groaned as the Berserker backed away. 'Don't give up…Father, come quickly, there's a human here…'

Heather and the Berserker both heard an angry snarl, a muffled explosion, and then a shower of splinters embedding themselves into the walls. Heather lunged forward, swinging her ax wildly, forcing the Berserker to back up into the corridor-

Where a blur of black and glowing blue plowed into him, striking so hard and rapidly that blood splattered onto the bars to either side even as Togi drove the man to the ground. Heather didn't even watch the end of the brief dismemberment since she knew their time had just been cut even shorter. Nóttreiði actively strained to place every remaining bond within her reach, snarling continuously.

'Move aside,' Togi commanded, and Heather hopped out of the way. He leaned over his son and set to work with far more efficiency, clawing at two different bonds at once while flaming a third. Nóttreiði rolled to his paws only a few heartbeats later, only his metal muzzle remaining, and that was quickly removed by a careful jet of near-white flame to the leather components.

'Heather, they heard something,' Einfari hissed. 'Get out!'

"On it already," Heather agreed, swinging herself onto Togi's back with practiced ease, though the lack of a saddle to grab had her using his frills as handholds. He and Nóttreiði ran out of the cell and back to the hole.

'Leap out, onto, and then up!' Togi barked, proceeding to do just that with the newly enlarged opening. Heather flattened herself to his back, her chest pressing hot scales, in an attempt to avoid another sharp burn on the sides of the hole, and missed most of their leap out into the open. She heard voices sounding the alarm, and the hissing of arrows in the air, and pained grunts from both Togi and Nóttreiði.

But nothing more. The sounds of conflict faded, replaced only by grunts of exertion as the dragon under her and the one off to the side powered away from danger. Her back burned in the salty sea air, but that was all. They had done it.

* * *

Heather didn't open her eyes until she heard Togi rumbling worriedly. 'Nóttreiði, tell me if there is an arrow in her back,' he growled. 'She is not moving.'

"I'm fine," she whispered weakly in his ear. Her heart was only just beginning to slow to something approaching normal, and she felt as if she could sleep for a week.

'And so are we,' Togi grumbled in relief. 'I have an arrow in my side, but it is not deep.'

'I am… Not fine…' Nóttreiði panted. 'I need to set down.'

'Not the field, there could be stragglers,' Togi growled, turning to one side. Heather still wasn't looking where they were going, her eyes focused only on the scales of Togi's back. 'Here, where we were earlier.'

'That's in the middle of them all,' Nóttreiði complained faintly.

'Why are we landing?' Einfari asked, alerting Heather to her presence. She must have just arrived. 'And why is Heather like that?'

'Injury answers both, I think,' Togi replied. Heather was jolted by a sudden stop, and she almost tumbled off his back. 'Also probably shock.'

"Relief," Heather corrected, raising her head and voluntarily dropping off of Togi before she could fall by accident. Her legs gave out when she hit the ground, but she managed to turn it into a controlled collapse, ending up on her knees.

'Heather!' Einfari barked, rushing to her. 'Your back!' A wet tongue began to run over her burns and puncture wounds.

Heather let out a sigh of relief and leaned forward. She hadn't realized how much her back hurt until it didn't anymore; now it was pleasantly cool and slowly becoming numb, though she doubted that would last long.

'Where are you hurt, son?' Heather heard Togi ask.

'My chest, and my shoulders,' Nóttreiði admitted.

'I see no cuts or gashes… Bruises?' Togi clarified.

'Yes.'

A deep snarl echoed through the empty clearing. 'I should have just landed and killed them all.'

'But this worked,' Einfari countered. 'And it was safer. Heather, how bad is it? I don't know anything about burns.'

"I'm surprised you can tell this is a burn, then," she managed, standing and turning to look at her friend. It was bearable, and she was beginning to feel bad for letting Einfari worry. "It's not too terrible. I'll be fine."

'Red hot skin with ash on it is obviously a burn,' Einfari huffed, nuzzling her face. 'You look different without your false skin on. Is this normal?'

Heather shrugged. She didn't feel all that self-conscious around dragons; what would they care if she was topless? "Yes, but I prefer to be covered."

'Nóttreiði,' Togi growled. 'Don't lie to me. I asked where you were hurt, and you did not mention the piece of wood sticking out of your back.'

'I didn't feel it,' Nóttreiði objected.

'I call dragon dung on that,' Einfari interjected, leaning away from Heather to glare at her brother. 'I took one to the paw and it hurt like crazy.'

'And you didn't tell Father about that either,' Nóttreiði shot back. 'Did you?'

'Well, no… But this isn't about me.' Einfari rumbled with restrained laughter. 'Wow, moments after saving you and I'm already wondering why we bothered.' Her voice held no scorn of seriousness; it was clear to all that she was joking.

Nóttreiði didn't seem to hear her, looking over at Heather instead. He said nothing.

'Einfari,' Togi rumbled, 'go fly out in the direction of home and find the pack. Let them know what has happened, and what to avoid if they decide to engage the enemy's retreat. And tell them we were betrayed. They need to know not to trust those humans.'

'Heather?' Einfari warbled.

'Leave her,' Togi replied. 'I want a link to you with me.'

'I'll be back soon,' Einfari promised, jumping up into the sky. 'They can't be far.'

'Heather,' Togi continued the moment Einfari was up in the air, walking over to her. 'How is your back?'

"I'll manage, but it hurts." So long as she moved her arms slowly and didn't twist her torso, it was just a dull ache, the pleasant numbness Einfari's saliva having already begun to wear off.

'Can you remove the arrow from my side?' he continued, turning and presenting the shaft sticking out of his scales. 'I cannot, and I trust you.' This was said with a significant glance in Nóttreiði's direction.

Heather knew very well where this was going to lead if she agreed to taking Togi's arrow out; he would insist she do Nóttreiði next. He knew that she knew it as well and was offering her the chance to avoid that specific encounter if she wasn't up to it.

But she had just decided she wasn't going to stop trying to earn Nóttreiði's trust, and backing down now wouldn't help with that. "Sure, I can do it." She examined the arrow and thought of something somewhat important. "Can one of you flame the ground? I think I'm supposed to cauterize the wound once I take the arrow out." Direct dragonfire to the ax would only melt it, but it should get hot enough if pressed against the hot stone.

Togi nodded and scrunched his face up, inhaling deeply. Then he coughed. 'I'm out,' he admitted. 'Nóttreiði?'

Nóttreiði padded over, moving stiffly, and leaned forward to flame the ground. He only did so for a brief time, and visibly spasmed at the end of it. 'My chest hurts,' he moaned.

"No more fire," Heather declared. She suspected he had a bruised or broken rib, or something along those lines. Someone who actually knew anything about dragon anatomy would know more; she was just guessing.

But the ground was hot, and time was wasting. She gripped the arrow shaft, pulled it out, and pressed the flat of her hot ax to the small puncture wound. Togi grunted, but otherwise didn't object, and the blood stopped before it could really begin to flow at all.

'That works,' Togi said approvingly, looking at his wound once she was done. 'Now Nóttreiði.'

To Heather's surprise, Nóttreiði didn't object, meekly turning to let her access his back. Either seeing his father go through the same procedure had reassured him, or he was cooperating for some other reason.

Whatever the case, Heather wasted no time in removing the arrow, which wasn't barbed, fortunately. Neither of the arrows had been. One quick cauterization later, followed by a pained roar, and she was done.

'Good…' Togi looked them both over consideringly. 'Heather, do you want something to cover yourself with?'

"That would be great," she admitted, "but there's nothing like that around."

'I'll find something. Nóttreiði, let her look over the rest of your injuries.' He bounded off into a dark alleyway without waiting for an answer.

Heather slowly walked around to face Nóttreiði. She could hardly believe Togi had done that; it wasn't like him at all to leave them injured and alone, even in a place that should be relatively safe, and the thought of him scouring a human village for a tunic or just a big piece of cloth was even more ludicrous.

'Did my father take a heavy blow to the head?' Nóttreiði mumbled, sounding as bemused as she felt.

"I'm honestly not sure," Heather said. "But he wanted me to check you out, so…" She pointed at his chest. "Let me see."

Nóttreiði growled but complied, not moving as she put a hand to the front of his broad chest and pushed.

"I'd have thought you would be even more scared of me now," she murmured, pushing different places. It stood to reason that if something was broken, he wouldn't like the feeling of her pushing on it, and would let her know.

'They kicked there, but it's just a bruise,' Nóttreiði said quietly, shifting himself so that her hands were not on the spot he was speaking of. 'I'm fine. I just want to go home.'

"Can you fly for a whole night straight?" she asked loudly, taking full advantage of his abnormally calm attitude to press her point without fear of reprisal. "That's how long you'd have to fly to get home, and you needed to set down right after we left their ship." She didn't think he would make it if that was any indication.

He narrowed his eyes. 'I _do _understand you, you know. You're doing what Maour does, talking in both languages at once.'

"Am I?" She hadn't known that, but she had assumed he understood anyway, even though he wouldn't have. She waved the new information away, not bothered by it. "Whatever. My point stands."

'After all this time, I understand now,' Nóttreiði rumbled, looking her in the eye. 'I've seen treachery. You are not false.'

"It _was _the human you went with to check the shoreline, right?" Heather asked, masking her immense surprise with a practical question. She had expected _regression_, not genuine progress. "He betrayed you and us?"

'Yes, the same ones.' Nóttreiði looked around. 'A part of me wants to fly away howling. But… that was what Father did. And now he is back, facing this anyway.'

"And currently scrounging through the streets for a tunic," Heather quipped. She still didn't get that. Togi was not suddenly cured and able to do something so paranoia-inducing; earlier that very night he had been cautious of approaching the Chieftains, let alone the general populace of a neutral island right after a bloody battle. She _could _blame the giddiness of a tense conflict survived, but that still didn't feel right.

'I will still be wary of humans,' Nóttreiði growled at her. 'But I won't fear them. I shouldn't.'

"Right." She was beginning to suspect a lot of this was overpowering relief at being saved speaking for him; she knew that heady optimism well enough, though she had only rarely experienced it herself. Tomorrow, once he had slept on this, she expected prickly, suspicious Nóttreiði back with only a little improvement. One rescue couldn't cure someone with deep-rooted problems. Though he _had _been changing slowly over the course of months, and she hadn't seen him in the last two, which was plenty of time for genuine progress to be made.

If he was more open to change right now than he would be later, she was going to try for as much as possible. She held out her hand, inviting him to meet her halfway.

Nóttreiði hopped back, disgruntled-

And a spinning blade sliced the air between them, where his head had been just a heartbeat ago, embedding itself in the ground on the far side of the clearing.

* * *

Togi hoped Heather didn't really need a covering; she wasn't going to get one anytime soon. That had been a convenient, if implausible, excuse to leave them supposedly alone. He was lurking in the next alley over, watching closely and ignoring the weakness he felt throughout his body as a result of all he had done recently.

He liked what he saw. Heather's persistence and lack of fear around Nóttreiði was good, of course, but the real improvement was with his son. Somehow, being betrayed and held captive for a short time had _helped_.

Togi suspected Nóttreiði was aware that he had finally experienced _actual _betrayal and captivity, and was now thinking that he knew how it felt. Obviously, Heather's actions felt nothing like that.

Maybe it was his cynicism, but he couldn't find it in himself to be too happy about that possible line of reasoning; it was good where it applied to Heather, but it would come with its own set of problems later if he took to his new approach as thoroughly as he did everything else.

Yes, Togi decided even as he watched Heather and Nóttreiði interact in a fashion that was stilted and awkward even for them, he was going to have to keep an eye on his son's mindset. That wasn't new. A few long talks with Nóttreiði on the subject of captivity and Heather once his son had rested and recovered enough to think clearly… That would be good. His job as a parent was never going to be truly over, but he felt he was finally returning to familiar ground, nudging his son in just the right direction instead of ramming into him and forcing him to change drastically. He could do that.

Heather, clearly at least a little unguarded thanks to the crazy night she had just lived through, stuck her hand out in a clumsy offer of friendship Nóttreiði wasn't ready to accept, even in his equally addled state of mind. He clumsily hopped back, offended-

And a blade spun between them, followed by an angry human scream that Togi thought might be feminine in nature. He sprang from his hiding place, discarding secrecy in favor of protecting the ones he had been watching, and bounded right over them even as they sluggishly reacted to the opening strike.

Togi knew he wasn't in top form at the moment either; he was out of fire and minorly injured, and had flown all day with no rest between then and now. Heather and Nóttreiði were worse, but he was by no means fresh and ready for a fight.

Judging by the bloody stain darkening her padded shoulder, the female with a distinctive wooden stake and ax wasn't fresh either, but that didn't stop her from charging and raising both weapons, one in either hand.

Togi wasn't _sure _whether this lunatic human was Astrid, though the stake seemed pretty distinctive, but he didn't care. She was going to die for what she had just tried to do; past actions would not change that verdict, and he was ready to carry it out.

She swung her weapon; he stepped to the side and hopped back as she jabbed forward with the stake. She was quick, quicker than he had expected, and he tried to fire at her-

Only to cough and almost take a sharp stick to the eye. He leaped back again, hacking to clear his dry throat. His fire wasn't going to come easily, if at all, for a little while. Maybe not even if he found it in himself to glow again; he didn't know how that worked or whether it could give him fire when he had already used all of his up.

"No fire, no energy, no life soon," Astrid, for that was who this must be, crowed mockingly, swiping at him again.

"Not you again," Heather exclaimed from behind him. Nóttreiði bounded up to crouch at his side, momentarily warding Astrid off with his presence.

"Again, and again, until you're all _dead_," Astrid hissed, striding forward again. Togi bounded forward to meet her, snagging a claw on her wooden stake and pulling it toward him, his teeth out to snap off whatever he could grab-

But then she was out, twisting the stake and his claws free, rolling _under _him. He almost succumbed to instinct and dropped to crush her before realizing she had a stake and could easily kill him with that. Instead he leaped upward and flapped once, throwing himself out of striking range.

By necessity, getting out of range also meant leaving her a clear path to the others. Togi dropped as soon as he could, but she was already striking at his son by the time he touched down, smacking sluggish paw blows aside with relative ease, laughing wildly, taking pleasure in how close each strike came to harming the tired dragon she was trying to kill.

Heather was there too, swinging her ax at Astrid's unprotected back. She was redirected by an unexpected pivot on Astrid's part, almost digging her ax into Nóttreiði's face before she could pull back. Astrid elbowed her side in the confusion, striking her bare skin, and slipped away yet again.

'Heather, get clear!' Togi ordered, bounding back into the fray to throw himself over Heather before Astrid could strike again. He took a glancing blade to the chest to do so, but a swift headbutt knocked Astrid safely away from both his son and Heather, which was more than worth the pain. Heather was ridiculously vulnerable at the moment, devoid of even the soft cured hides humans usually used to cover themselves in lieu of scales.

Thankfully, Heather scrambled away with no argument, clearly seeing the wisdom in retreating when she would be struck down by the first real hit Astrid landed.

"Night Furies, weak and vulnerable," Astrid taunted, flipping her stake to hold it as if ready to pin something to the ground. She stepped to the side, obviously gauging their reaction.

'She is fast and experienced,' Togi said, mostly for Nóttreiði's benefit. His son didn't have enough combat experience to read an opponent of any kind, let alone a human, but was more than capable of using the results of such an assessment. "Both sides are deadly, but the wooden one less so. She _will _strike at Heather to distract us.' He would have added something about how tired they both were if he thought his son needed the reminder, but the drooping tail and heavy breathing proved that Nóttreiði was already well aware of his own situation.

'Which is why she should run,' Nóttreiði growled, his eyes on Astrid. 'Go get other humans to mob this one and pull her down if we're still fighting by the time they arrive.'

'This won't last long enough for that,' Togi countered. 'But she should go anyway. Nóttreiði, focus on this human's head and frailty. One good stomp or bite will kill her if we can get her in the right spot.'

"So will an arrow to the face," Heather murmured, stepping back. "Keep her off me and give me an opening, and I'll put her down. Like a mad dog."

True to comparison, Astrid strode forward in spite of all common sense, attacking again. She moved with practiced ease, directing the stabbing points and cutting blades of her weaponry at any weak point that availed itself, getting right in their faces and forcing them to concede ground.

Togi snarled as he tried to bite down on the stake only to have it jabbed at his face; he knew all too well that this fight would be over if he had his fire, but she seemed to be taking advantage of the lack far too effectively. She wasn't even guarding against the possibility of a blast to the face. He could attribute that to insanity… Or to knowledge.

She knew they were out, and she knew they were exhausted. He changed tactics, stepping back and glaring at her.

She knocked a sluggish paw away and jabbed at Nóttreiði, only to find him following his father's lead and stepping back again. Her eyes narrowed.

'Father, we can take her,' Nóttreiði panted. 'It's just one human!' He seemed bewildered at their lack of progress. He wouldn't be if he understood their many disadvantages, this particular human's apparent skill, and the cautious style of combat Togi was holding to, unwilling to overextend himself. If he gave in and attacked like a Night Fury would, he would kill her, but he would not walk away, not with that dratted stake always by her side. The only way pouncing and rending would work was if she was declawed first, either literally or by swatting her held tools away.

Or Heather could get a clear shot. Astrid dodged to the side, crouching just out of pawing range of Nóttreiði, and surged forward yet again.

Nóttreiði, frustrated and fed up, leaped to meet her. They clashed, and Togi darted in to bite at the ax before it could cleave his son's throat in two, _finally _getting a solid grip on something. He yanked, trying to pull it out of her hands-

The human came _with _the ax, using his pull to drag herself away. She tried to take his eye with her stake _again_, forcing him to let go, rolled on the stone ground-

Togi let out a bark of surprise as he realized she had gotten past them. Heather turned and ran, seeing nothing between herself and the crazy human. Togi coughed even as he ran, trying to catch up with the two of them, and unable to summon the fire to end it.

* * *

Heather still didn't think a human could face a Night Fury in fair combat, let alone two. This just wasn't a fair fight. Her arms trembled as she held an arrow at the ready. She wasn't drawing yet; in the state she was in, she'd accidentally loose and kill Togi or Nóttreiði.

All she could do was watch as Astrid had the time of her life parrying slow strikes and half-hearted bites. Nóttreiði and Togi were exhausted from the all-day flight and then fight at the end of it, and it was showing, their every movement stilted and slow. Astrid would have been dead in seconds otherwise.

Then Astrid was past them, and her eyes locked on Heather. Heather bolted. She knew better than to stand and trust a single shot to put down the woman who had apparently shrugged off an arrow to the arm earlier.

Instead, she ran into the alley. If she could bait Astrid into the open, out into the occupied part of the village, it would be over. Nobody was around at the moment, but only because everyone was tending the wounded or tearing down inconvenient choke point barricades all across the town.

Heather ran past another, even narrower alleyway, hesitated, and then ducked in. It was nothing more than a space between huts, too narrow for her to even spread her arms to either side, the far end blocked by a chest-high pile of old refuse, and it was perfect. She drew an arrow and sighted along the opening; if Astrid wasn't looking she would run right by, and if she was, she'd stop and offer the perfect target at close range. A clean kill was even better than luring her into the village proper.

Sure enough, Astrid darted past, not looking to either side. To all appearances, she hadn't even noticed the smaller alleyway-

But Heather wasn't going to be outsmarted that easily. She remained still, her gaze locked on the opening, ready to fire. The smart move for Astrid would be to act like she hadn't noticed, and then to wait just to one side, ready to cut Heather down when she emerged.

A moment later, the obvious problem with that plan ran by, Togi looking more frantic than she had seen him in… Well, not very long, they _had _just rescued Nóttreiði. Then Nóttreiði-

And then there was a roar of anger and surprise, and Heather bolted out of the smaller alley.

All Heather could see was Nóttreiði's back; he was blocking the way. Togi was roaring louder now, and Nóttreiði was trying to push past his father, to no avail. He was too big to do anything-

"Stay still!" Heather commanded, before clambering up onto Nóttreiði and redrawing her bow. Her footing was unsteady, but she managed.

The world seemed to recede as she sighted down the shaft of her arrow. One narrow alleyway, a blond-haired lunatic swinging an ax, and Togi, fighting despite a small fountain of thick, dark blood gushing out from somewhere and painting Astrid a red far too deep to be her own. Her heart hammered out a fast tempo in her chest. Nóttreiði was still trying to move forward, but failing; his father's wings were blocking him, and to climb past them would be to distract Togi from a fight that was undoubtedly a single instant away from being his last.

Astrid's arm raised. Heather fired. A thin shaft with feathers on the end blossomed in Astrid's arm, just below the wrist.

But the ax still fell, chopping deep into Togi's shoulder. Astrid screamed out in pain, stumbling backward while still brandishing her ax with her now twice-pierced arm, and with a hateful glare, turned and ran. The stake she still dragged along with her, even now, rattled against ground until she disappeared from sight around a tight corner.

'Father!' Nóttreiði screeched, still unable to get around to the front.

'I let her… Get in close…' Togi panted, lowering his wings and crouching. 'Help.'

That single, desperate plea scared Heather more than anything else that night. She dropped her weapons and vaulted forward despite her aching back, sliding in the pool of blood rapidly spreading in front of Togi.

He had a deep ax wound in his shoulder, and another across the underside of his chest. Both looked serious. Both looked potentially fatal, with the amount of blood they were letting out.

_**Author's Note: **_**Fun fact: I write some stories with very appropriate background noise (**_**When Nothing Remains **_**being written solely to the sounds of a howling blizzard is the best example of this), but some… Well, let's just say my music choice for this chapter isn't exactly the sort one would expect.**_** Rush, **_**by **_**The Score, **_**on repeat for hours on end. After about 20 minutes, it ceases to register in my mind as anything but setting a 'frantic pace' sort of mood. **

**Oh, was that not what you wanted to talk about? Something about Togi's injuries, or Astrid's whereabouts? Sorry, you'll just have to wait for those. Also, in case anyone is wondering, Heather didn't contact Einfari during the fight for the simple reason that it all happened in seconds, a few minutes at most. Einfari had been flying for longer than that long before Astrid struck, and thus wouldn't be able to do anything… And Heather already had enough to deal with.**


	38. Chapter 38

Too much blood. There was too much blood, it was everywhere, and Togi's wounds were still bleeding freely. Heather looked around for anything that could help with the gaping wounds, but there was nothing, not even a tunic for a makeshift bandage as she had shed that on the ship.

She forced herself to act confident, fighting against panic for Togi's sake, but she wasn't going to let forced confidence blind her to the overwhelming severity of the problem at hand, however necessary said confidence was at the moment. She closed her eyes for the brief moment it took to access Einfari's senses and then withdrew, immediately looking over at a bare, dark wall of no particular importance, specifically one relatively unstained by the initial spurt of blood.

'Heather? I'm on my way back. They were almost here, so I flew into them right away.' Einfari sounded so amazingly calm compared to the heady state of near-panic Heather was dealing with. She accessed Heather's sight out of habit and saw nothing but the wall.

"Hurry," Heather said quickly. "Bring Eldurhjarta and Maour to the clearing you left us in. Stop for nothing, get here as fast as you can. Togi's badly hurt." She wished she could force Einfari out of her mind; doing so would be cruel, but it would get Einfari there faster for lack of information, and it would cut out the terrible sight she was about to pass on.

Einfari said nothing for all of a heartbeat. Then she spoke. 'How bad?' Her voice quivered.

"Not bad enough to kill if I can help it," Heather said firmly. "Every second counts. Hurry." She turned to Nóttreiði, giving Einfari a glance of the blood all over the alley, but no real chance to see the actual wounds, and addressed him. "Go ahead, make sure that Astrid really ran, and grab the first human you can find. Don't hurt them, don't let them hurt you, just drag them over here. Make your eyes wide and hide your teeth, it will make you look cuter and less stabbable. Togi, you need to walk. We're going back-"

'To the clearing, I know,' Togi said faintly, surprising Heather. His eyes were glazed with pain, and he was awkwardly shoving his head against his shoulder wound, trying to staunch the flow. His paws were occupied doing the same for his chest, though not very effectively. 'I'm in no state to argue.'

"Better than any human," Heather countered, standing to the side as Nóttreiði ran out of the alley. She didn't know if he could do as she had asked, but he would try because the alternative was standing around and hoping his father didn't die. "You can still talk pretty effectively. I'd be speechless." She put her hands to the wound on his shoulder, fearlessly sticking them into the open gash and grabbing hold, pulling the flesh together as she slid onto his back. "You take the chest wound and walk. I've got this."

'This…' Togi struggled to stand, slipping in his own blood. 'I can. But… So much blood…'

"You're a big dragon," Heather countered, relieved. He was slowly turning around now, placing each paw deliberately, one of his front two occupied with his chest. That he could stand and move at all spoke well of his chances, or at least better than the initial shock of seeing so much blood. Now that she looked, it was not an incredible amount, just far more than she thought any human could survive losing.

'Dizzy, too,' he said as he made his way back through the alley. 'Eldurhjarta… I don't know if she can… do anything for this.'

"Just stop in the open space. We need to close your wounds." She didn't think they could do that the way they had the arrow wounds earlier. For one thing, asking for fire was out of the question, and for another the wounds were far too large for that. She didn't even know where she had left her ax; probably back in the alley with her bow and arrows.

Togi collapsed in the clearing, alerting Heather to the fact that they were there. She looked up, trying to think. He had two deep wounds, both imperfectly held closed by his paw and her hands… What next?

What could she possibly do? She tried not to think about where her hands were, or what she was grabbing onto, or the slick, hot liquid sluggishly spurting out despite her best efforts.

Togi leaned over, still pressing one paw to his chest wound, and stuck out a wing, bracing himself against the wooden side of a hut. He then slid down, hitting the ground with a loud thump.

'So... ' He huffed, trailing off for a long moment. 'So ironic.'

"What?" She checked Einfari's sight and saw the village, rapidly growing closer. Help was almost here.

'I finally conquer my fear with you, save my son,' Togi rumbled, 'and then die before I get to enjoy any of it.'

"You're not going to die." She wasn't going to let him give up; she hadn't thought he _would _give up. "So don't say that."

'Sorry,' he rumbled mournfully. 'Haven't had a good night.'

She couldn't help but laugh at that. "None of us have."

The noise of wings cutting through the air alerted her to Einfari's arrival, and she twisted, keeping her grip on Togi's wound, to see Einfari, Eldurhjarta, and Toothless diving, a dozen others following behind.

'Bad, bad, that's bad,' Eldurhjarta barked, rushing over. 'Not you two, keep doing that,' she quickly continued, 'the wounds, I'm talking about the wounds.'

"Can you-" Heather began.

Eldurhjarta cut her off with a bark. 'No, let me look first,' she said, sticking her nose against Togi's chest and eyeing the wound he held with his paw. 'Shallow, wide,' she murmured.

'Is there danger?' Toothless asked. He looked around the no longer empty clearing. 'What happened?' Everyone else, Myrkurs and Eldurs mostly, began checking around themselves as well, though there was no point to that.

"Astrid," Heather explained. "She ran off. No idea where."

'Just her?' Toothless clarified.

Heather nodded.

'Okay,' he decided, 'Some of us need to hunt her down, and some of us should guard the Nótts.'

'Maour,' Eldurhjarta called out, 'Fishlegs taught me about sewing up wounds, can you do that?'

"I think we have a needle and sinew," Maour offered, slipping down off Toothless and digging in his saddle bag. "For emergency repairs."

'Yes, that will do,' she replied. 'Chest wound first, Maour.'

"On it," Maour called out, detaching the saddlebag and bringing it over. "This isn't going to feel good," he said in way of warning. Einfari, who had taken up a spot by her father's tail, whined worriedly.

'I am past caring about pain,' Togi grunted, moving his paw. 'What will you do?'

'Pull the wound together,' Eldurhjarta offered. 'Fishlegs and I have discussed this. First he will pull it together, then I lick, then we put something on top to help the blood dry.'

"Nóttreiði is getting more help," Heather said, "but don't you need to clean the wound first?" She didn't know much about injuries, but that seemed right.

"If he had blood to spare, maybe," Maour said, kneeling and pulling out supplies. Thick sinew, a small metal needle, and some spare leather that was immediately put to work mopping up some of the blood. "I think bleeding to death is what we're trying to stop here. Everything else comes after."

'Please hurry,' Togi moaned. 'I feel light and dizzy.'

Heather looked away as Maour and Eldurhjarta started working, the latter directing the former. She felt distinctly helpless, even though she was still holding his other wound closed.

She tried watching the newly-arrived Night Furies to take the edge off her worry. Seeing Eldurs and Myrkurs walking around the edges of the clearing was a little reassuring, and knowing that others were trying to track down Astrid more so. She didn't think the injured madwoman would last long against four or more combat-ready dragons fresh from nothing more than a day-long flight. She wouldn't get lucky again.

But none of that _really _helped. Togi was quiet now, worryingly so, only grunting occasionally as Maour pulled his flesh closer together, soaked in blood from the elbow down.

"What happened here?" Maour asked, standing to move Heather's hands and start on the shoulder wound. She flinched, not expecting him to do that, and almost held on by reflex. The sight of his bloody hands pulling hers away was nauseating.

"We saved Nóttreiði, landed here to lick our wounds, and she attacked out of nowhere," Heather summarized, only barely noticing the humor in her unintentional choice of words. "We were all too tired. I put an arrow in her arm, she got in a few good hits, and ran away."

'Saving Nóttreiði from the Berserkers, because he was betrayed,' Einfari said, speaking up. She sounded as miserable as Heather felt, and more than a little angry. 'One of the humans betrayed him. The one we sent him with to check the coastline.'

"Sigvard, Chief of the Rockbreakers," Heather added. "There's no question he sold Nóttreiði out." They hadn't had time to get properly angry over that thanks to the rapid-fire assortment of potentially fatal challenges that had immediately followed that revelation. She felt a rising righteous anger, but it was dull and numb, like everything else. Her body was slowly coming off the adrenaline-fueled high she had been running on, and she was feeling all her pains full-force. Without even thinking about it, she sat down and arched her back, leaning against warm scales without touching the burned part of herself to anything.

Maour quickly looked away from her, fixing his gaze on the bloody wound that was slowly closing, sinew spanning the gap more and more with every passing moment. "What did you actually see?" he asked.

'Don't question our perception,' Einfari hissed. 'We know what happened.'

"But not all of it. I'm not doubting you," he retorted, not looking up, "I just want to know everything. It's going to be hard to call him out in front of the other Chieftains, given I wasn't there. I need to know what you saw."

'We saw a hostage trade-' Einfari snorted, shaking her head. 'Right, there was a human being traded for, wasn't there? I had almost forgotten.'

"Yeah, there was." She had forgotten too; they hadn't seen who it was, and hadn't cared.

'Didn't…' Togi huffed, sounding strained, and flinched under Maour's tug on the stitching, his muscles twitching. 'Myrkurljós said the traitor was brooding all the way here.'

"Yeah," Heather agreed, surprised Togi had been listening. She had thought he was unconscious. "His son died…"

'In the fight on the not-so-peaceful island,' Einfari growled. 'Or maybe not.'

"We don't know for sure who it was," Maour cautioned, sewing up the last of Togi's shoulder wound, "but that sounds right. It doesn't matter much. He betrayed us and broke the agreement. There's no wiggling out of that."

'Nóttreiði was captured,' Einfari growled. 'If the humans will not punish their own, we will ambush and kill him ourselves.'

"Right." Maour looked around. "Wait, where is Nóttreiði?"

* * *

Nóttreiði darted through the narrow paths between wooden structures, following the noise. Humans were noisy, as a general rule, and many of them in the same place even more so.

He knew where to go, and Heather had told him what to do once he found them, but that didn't stop him from worrying as he ran. He wasn't sure if bringing the humans to his injured father was a good idea; if he didn't know that the rest of the pack would be there by the time he returned, he would have refused to get them at all.

But what could the humans do that Eldurhjarta couldn't? He didn't understand why Heather had told him to fetch them. They might act as a deterrent if the crazy female returned, but so would the other Furies, but he knew he wasn't the one to decide that. Heather had told him to go get them, and it was possible they would be the key to saving his father's life. He had to just trust her.

Oh, the irony, that on the same night he was betrayed he would wind up trusting one particular human anyway. Not entirely, not without reservation, but enough that he believed the worried, determined way she had spoken of ensuring his father lived despite the grievous injuries.

Nóttreiði jumped to the side, following the relatively high-pitched cries and cheers. He couldn't tell if the noise meant they were fighting or celebrating, but he rounded a corner to approach them regardless. The sounds were coming from inside one of the wooden structures, audible through a narrow opening that bled light out into the dark night, a patch of flickering yellow on the ground in front of him.

He sat up on his hind paws and peered into the opening, shoving his head right through the weak, fragile wooden lattice blocking it.

Humans, big and raucous, milling about and roaring at each other. He couldn't make sense of any of it. They were all so distracted none had noticed his intrusion, but they weren't _doing _anything.

He growled, momentarily stumped. Some of these humans might not be friendly; he had plenty of bruises to attest to the danger of letting those come close.

Why had Heather sent him? He didn't know what to do here. Roar to announce himself? Grab one and drag it back, and hope the others followed? That seemed like a good way to get killed.

Getting their attention at all seemed like a path toward quick death. He wasn't going to let his latest experience with evil humans traumatize him, not when it had consisted of a short beating, being restrained, and nothing else, but that didn't _help _him feel any more at ease with this.

But his father was hurt, and if he gave up or did anything less than his absolute best, he would forever feel guilty if the worst happened. So, he gathered his courage, reminded himself that these humans were _supposed _to be allies, and shoved himself up and through the opening, landing on and accidentally shattering a wooden ledge directly in front of the opening.

The noise didn't stop so much as _focus_; he shied away from the uproar, his head ringing. They were all staring at him, many had sharp false claws already raised and pointing, while others were backing away from him or holding the more aggressive back…

Nóttreiði blinked. Several humans scowled at him all the more fiercely, and were restrained in turn. One in particular, stepped forward and called out to him.

He might not know humans, but he knew a leader when he saw one, and vaguely remembered this one from before. Not the one that had betrayed him, one of the others.

The leader barked something. Nóttreiði shook his head, nodded, pulled his lips back like the Svarturs all seemed to do on occasion, and slowly backed out the opening, jerking his head in a blatant invitation. He didn't think he could be any more clear without speaking their language. They needed to follow.

Precious moments passed as he waited outside the wooden construct; for some reason, most of them weren't following him out the obvious opening. A few did, but the majority of them filed out a much taller, thinner opening he hadn't noticed before.

The leader gestured impatiently at him; he snorted and turned to go. He felt extremely exposed, turning his back to humans so soon after being betrayed, and kept his head tilted to one side to keep them in sight no matter how awkward that made his running.

He would not be traumatized. He would be smarter, more cautious, but reasonable, like his father was now. Or maybe, given how hard his father fought to be like that, how his father wished he could be.

Nóttreiði was going to make his father proud. If he lived long enough to see…

He growled at himself and ran faster, but he realized he was leaving the humans behind, so he slowed again. This was all for nothing if he lost them and had to find them again. If they could do anything, they needed to be there as soon as possible to do it.

Nóttreiði turned into the narrow alleyway he knew led to the clearing, only to stop short.

'What are you doing?' Eldurvatn rumbled curiously. 'And who are they?'

'Heather told me to bring them,' Nóttreiði replied. 'Let them through.'

'If _you _of all dragons are doing what Heather asks, then there must be a good reason.' Eldurvatn decided, backing up instead of moving out of the way. 'Can't be too careful, though. Everyone, humans incoming!'

When Nóttreiði and the rowdy entourage he led stepped into the small clearing amidst the dead, unnatural wooden structures, it was clear that nobody was taking chances. Fully half the pack stood around his father, physically shielding him. Einfari and Eldurhjarta were inside the small, defensive ring.

The human leader barked out something loud and long-winded, and Maour stepped away, his arms soaked in blood. Nóttreiði stifled a snarl and looked away, choosing to focus on his father instead of Maour. It was easier that way.

'He actually got humans without mauling one?' one of the Eldurs hissed incredulously.

'My brother can do whatever needs to be done,' Einfari said bluntly, casting him a subtly impressed look, just enough to convey her approval without seeming condescending or disbelieving, like the Eldur had.

Nóttreiði noticed that Heather was leaning against his father's side, and mindful of his sister's approval and his own resolutions, said nothing. 'How are you?' he warbled, speaking to his father.

'Still living,' his father groaned, not opening his eyes. 'All I can expect. At least things are in good hands.'

'Hands?' Nóttreiði asked. He didn't know what those were, though he felt like he had heard the term before.

'Hands,' his father confirmed. 'Maour is taking charge. He will ensure the mad human is hunted down and the traitor punished.' His eyes flicked open at that, narrow with pain and anger. 'Stay close to Maour. Make sure he knows to do so.'

'I can do that,' Einfari rumbled.

'You should,' Nóttreiði agreed. 'I don't understand them.' He could hear Maour speaking in the strange way he always did, using both languages at once, but the rest were as unintelligible as ever.

'Well, let me fill you in,' Einfari offered, slapping her tail on the ground next to her. 'Right now, Maour is making sure they don't blame us for the pack's late arrival.'

'They had better not.' Most of the pack hadn't shown up in time, but Nóttreiði was of the opinion that their side had taken enough injuries and risks already. He settled down next to his sister, glad that the Eldurs and Myrkurs were providing a physical barrier. Things seemed to be getting heated.

* * *

"We came as quickly as we could," Maour repeated for what felt like the tenth time, staring down Rotison and his drunken, belligerent men. Most of them had been sent to try and track down Astrid, following in the footsteps of the Myrkurs who had gone to do the same earlier, and those left were the least inclined to do anything useful.

"Ye _missed _it," Rotison sneered. "We 'ad to pick up the slack."

"Are you complaining about having to fight somebody?" He didn't have to worry about pushing Rotison too far and inciting violence; having half a dozen able-bodied Night Furies backing him up was more than enough insurance to allow him to push and hopefully shut Rotison up. They were wasting time, and as belligerent as he was, Rotison wasn't the Chieftain that needed to be called out and disgraced.

"I'm complainin' about the fight bein' 'ere," Rotison slurred. "This is peak tradin' time, and it's all disruptin' that."

"Oh, come on, that's not even a good excuse," someone called out. Camicazi, looking none the worse aside from a bruise on her chin, shoved her way past two of Rotison's drunken retinue, poking one with the tip of a knife to get them to move. Bertha followed behind her, pushing hard enough to unbalance even the heftiest of men.

"An' we did a _grand _job o' keepin' the fight from yer precious village," Mogadon slurred, sounding as drunk as Rotison. Aldir and Sigvard followed behind.

Maour restrained himself to a cursory glance in Sigvard's direction. No matter how angry he was with the treacherous Rockbreaker Chieftain for selling out an ally, breaking the treaty, and trying to get away with it like nothing had happened, it wouldn't do to alert him too soon.

'There he is,' Toothless hissed, stepping around and warily circling the drunken men to stand in the alleyway. 'Nobody gets past me now.'

'Hey, what about me? I can't fly past.'

Toothless arched his neck and looked behind himself to see Elderburg. 'Oh, right. Wait, you're grounded?' He squeezed to the side to allow Eldurberg through. 'Where were you?'

'Looking for some of those nice human females Myrkurvængur bragged about. My wing hurts,' he admitted, flaring a wing to display a small puncture wound in the membrane, 'and I thought they might help make it better.'

'You have a highly skilled healer sister for that,' Eldurhjarta said snarkily.

'Who would never let me hear the end of it, so…' Eldurberg seemed to notice everything that was going on simultaneously; he trailed off, taking in the angry men, defensive Furies, and heavily bandaged Nótt lying against the side of a hut. 'What did I miss?'

"We have bigger things to argue about than our late arrival," Maour said firmly, addressing the five Chieftains. "First, as Rotison already knows, Astrid Hofferson is on the island."

That got Camicazi's attention; she drew her other knife and smiled widely. "Hunting time!"

"Exactly," Maour agreed solemnly. "But the hunting parties have already left. She's not getting off this island." There was no way it would happen; Rotison's people had gone to ensure the docks were still totally locked down, and there were no more hidden Berserker vessels like the one that had almost sailed off with Nóttreiði.

"We'll be sending out some o' our more skilled, of course," Bertha said firmly. "Nobody better than a Burglar to catch a sneak."

"And my men too," Mogadon declared, drawing his sword for no particular reason. "If I can find any still awake to do it."

"That's great," Maour agreed. He meant it; the more people hunting for Astrid, the faster she'd be caught. He had no idea what they were going to do with her, but that was a secondary concern. Getting her locked down and no longer a threat took precedence.

And the same applied to the other looming confrontation. He shrugged his shoulders, feeling the Scythe resting between them, and spoke again.

"Also," he said coldly, "we have a traitor in our ranks."

Sigvard, who had been staring at the dragons with mild interest, whirled upon hearing that, though he tried to hide it as a stretch. Maour would have smiled at the blatantly obvious attempt if he were in any mood to be amused.

"Here, or in general?" Aldir asked cautiously.

"Sigvard." Maour pointed to him, ensuring that even the drunkest Viking present knew who he was speaking of. "He turned on the Night Fury sent with him to check the coasts, and sold him to the Berserkers. He broke the agreement we all signed."

Sigvard, strangely enough, made no move to draw his weapon. He stood proudly, glaring at Maour, and scowled. "Liar."

"Traitor." Maour waved in the general direction of Heather and Togi. "The others saw. They got him back, at great risk to themselves, and no thanks to you. Whether you admit it or not, you've broken the treaty, and you'll pay the price." He didn't intend to do it himself, or have anyone in particular do it; just bluffing Sigvard into admitting his actions would be enough to pass the actual task of enforcing the fatal penalty to whichever Chieftain most wanted to do it. That was unavoidable, inevitable if he wanted the alliance to remain intact without a traitor in their midst.

"None would take the word of a dragon, if it even had words," Sigvard said, backing away. "And you'll not set them on me."

"How about the word of a human, then?" Maour asked sarcastically. "Heather was there. We can wake her up and ask her."

"She'll lie."

"Come on," Camicazi drawled, all the humor gone from her voice. She certainly believed, judging by the way she held her knives at the ready. "All Vikings suck at deception, and you're no different."

"She's right," Bertha added angrily. "I've never seen a more obvious liar. Why'd you do it, Sigvard? We 'ave a right to know before we cut you in two."

"You'll do no such thing," Sigvard said, finally drawing the sharpened pickaxe that served as his tribe's weapon of choice. "I only did what I had to."

"You gotta be jokin'," Mogadon said gruffly, drawing his sword and leveling it at Sigvard. "Why?"

"You _know _why!" Sigvard exclaimed. "You too," he added, pointing at Bertha and Aldir. "You all should know. They had my son, what else was I to do?"

'I guess that's proof,' Toothless muttered. 'I don't feel bad for him, but I do pity the son.'

Maour nodded. He _did _feel bad for Sigvard, if only slightly; there were a dozen better ways to approach a problem like that, ways that didn't end in treachery, death, and possibly a divine judgment afterward.

"And ya didn' think ta _tell _anybody?" Mogadon growled. "We were fightin' them, for Thor's sake! We coulda gone in and taken 'im back!"

"Yeah, you had a tribe of thieves on hand, and didn't ask for us to steal him back?" Camicazi added. "Stupid move."

"Not to mention us," Maour agreed. "Between us all, we could have come up with something." He wasn't _entirely _sure of that; if it was a foregone conclusion then they would have sent an assassin to take out Dagur and Astrid from the start, and avert the whole war. But it was certainly a better choice than waiting and then cooperating with the enemy.

"I did wha' I had to," Sigvard said stubbornly. "One dragon ain't gonna turn the tide, and they got it back anyway."

"One dragon could very well turn the tide," Maour said, incensed. "Do you know what you did? You gave _Dagur _a _Night Fury_. Did you _want _one of our own broken and used as a mount? Dagur is bad enough on his own!" He could have gone on to explain exactly why giving Dagur Nóttreiði in particular had been a horrible decision, but now was not the time for that.

"It doesn't matter," Bertha interrupted. "Sigvard, did ye get 'im back?"

"Wounded, starving, beaten half to death, but yes," Sigvard replied warily. "You'll not touch him."

"I 'ope that was worth yer life and yer tribe's honor," Mogadon said.

"My tribe had nothing to do with this." Sigvard continued to back up, only to hear a deep, warning snarl from behind him. He stopped just in front of Toothless, turning to keep one eye on the dragon and one on everyone else. "It was just me."

"And I 'ope whoever is the next Rockbreaker Chieftain has more honor," Mogadon replied, advancing on Sigvard.

Aldir stepped in, moving between them. "Hold on."

"Why should I?" Mogadon asked angrily.

"We can't afford to be any _more _outnumbered," Aldir reminded him. "We do have an enemy fleet to destroy."

"They brought far more weapons than men anyway," Mogadon retorted. "And I'll not fight alongside traitors."

"Exactly my point." Aldir turned to Sigvard. "You've broken your word, and you'll pay for it. But we need your men. Who is next in line?"

"My son… Bu' my second in command, 'cause he's in no shape to lead," Sigvard admitted. "Wha' are you plannin'?"  
"You'll step down and forfeit all rights to leadership in favor of your son once he's recovered," Aldir proposed. "Your tribe will continue to fight the Berserkers, acting as if the treaty was never broken."

"This ain't soundin' like a punishment to me," Rotison grumbled, reminding everyone that he and his men were still present.

"You'll fight like a common Viking, in the front lines, and die," Aldir continued, a hard tone entering his voice. "And if you live through this war, we'll execute you. But your stupidity and treachery is _not _about to weaken our position any further than absolutely necessary."

"He could run," Bertha pointed out. "He's already proven he has no honor."

"If he does, his tribe will pay for it in blood," Mogadon offered. "Problem solved. I like this idea."

"Fine," Sigvard capitulated, putting his pickax away. "I only did what I had to. I'm man enough to face the consequences."

'He thought nobody would notice,' Toothless observed.

"Saving face," Maour murmured. He was glad there wouldn't be any bloody executions here and now; Aldir's compromise was a far better alternative.

Sigvard turned, and Toothless stepped out of the way, growling all the while. Every other Night Fury in the clearing echoed his growl, startling many of the Vikings present.

'All your negotiating did not take into account that my family would want revenge personally,' Einfari said neutrally.

'I don't think you want your brother killing a human in cold blood,' Toothless retorted, 'and your father isn't going to be up to doing much in the near future. This works for everyone else.'

'I'm not complaining,' Einfari clarified. 'I will be happy when my father has recovered, and the human who hurt him killed. We _do _get to kill that one, right?'

"If we catch her…" Maour shrugged. "I don't know." If it were up to him, he didn't know what he would decide, but it wasn't, not totally. She was one of the two leaders of the opposition; how they dealt with her would be a group decision.

Assuming they caught her. It was almost laughable to think she could get away, but not quite. She had already proven more devious than anyone expected.

* * *

Astrid hunched over, stopping for a moment to fight herself.

The drive to hunt had kept her going for months, years, always allowing her to stomach whatever frustrating, inconvenient thing needed to be done at the moment. Anything that built up her ability to track down, fight, kill, and destroy dragons, Night Furies in particular. Anything for that.

But now that same drive had split, and she couldn't decide what to do. Both paths led to the hunt, both to slaughter and death.

She held out her twice-pierced arm, and gripped the thin arrow sticking out from her wrist, yanking it through with no hesitation, snapping the offending shaft and dropping it down into the hole below her.

Tending to her wound was good, whichever way she decided to go next. Doing so in an outhouse was bad, but the disgusting smell would mask her scent and make it easier to avoid any dragons-

Or sneak up on them, once she let the smell dilute a bit; most dragons would notice the scent of human waste, but they were in the middle of a village and it would fit right in-

Or she could run. Her head spun as she tore a strip off her tunic to stem the flow of blood whether from blood loss or conflicting motivations, she couldn't say. Her emotions were spiraling out of control, ranging from anger to rage to cold fear, though the latter was swiftly quashed every time it came up.

What to do? Hunt now, or hunt later? Now was tempting; she was here, they were here, and the terrain suited her more than it did Night Furies.

But the terrain suited the Thor-forsaken tribes who lived here and had allied with the demons more than it did her; she would be hunted.

She wished she had never taken up with Dagur; if she were not the co-leader of his people, they would not bother hunting her down now, and the hunt would be easier.

Her mood swung, and she banished that regret. Dagur was the reason she was here at all, the reason the Night Furies had come to fight instead of hiding somewhere.

Somewhere…

She closed her eyes, breathed out, ignored the stench, and tried to calm herself. Dagur had gotten around to teaching her how he did it a few weeks ago, and though it barely helped at all, any help was better than nothing.

It was better if the hunt was seen through. The hunt was better served if she did not die here. That meant returning to Dagur, to the armada helping her. Especially given what she knew; they needed her to end this.

That decided, she stood, exited the outhouse, and ran. The streets were empty, the torches either burning out or already extinguished. It was well past midnight, and the sun would be rising soon.

She knew she looked out of place, running with an ax in one hand and a stake tucked under her other arm. The average Viking wouldn't recognize her on sight, but they might detain her anyway, and the more time she spent killing people who did that, the less likely it was she would escape-

A group of men walked into the street from an alleyway, bearing torches and led by a Night Fury with yellow eyes. She ducked behind a stray barrel, her heart pounding.

They were coming closer. She could get a kill and _then _run; it wouldn't slow her that much. The hunt… But she had to get off this island…

The search party, for that was what it had to be, turned down another alleyway on the other side of the street, their light disappearing, and she stood, shaking with indecision and pent-up bloodlust.

To kill or to escape and kill more, later?

The hunt came first. She ran, passing the alleyway and continuing the way they had come from. They were looking for her, and being methodical about it; she would go where they had already checked.

But that was no good; they were moving toward the docks, the only place on this yak-patty of an island that she wanted to go. If there were more of them, and of course there would be, they would all end up there.

She stopped again, standing in the darkened street, and turned on her heel, going back yet again. She had to reach the docks first if she wanted to leave. Whether she was hunting now or later, she had to follow them.

The moving light was easy to spot; she lurked in the shadows well back, far enough that the dragon wouldn't smell her. There was no wind, which was a bad sign; at any moment it could betray her. She still stunk, it just wasn't distinctly her. She had learned as much from hunting Nadders. No scent was perfect camouflage; anything strong enough to drown her own odor out completely was strong enough to draw attention, too concentrated to be normal.

At any moment, that dragon could turn and see her. She wanted it to happen. She didn't want it to happen. Being seen would mean fighting, but it would also mean probably not getting away.

She had not felt true indecision in a long, long time, and it was agonizing. Every moment she spent sneaking along in the wake of the search party was another jab at her mind, another wild swing of her emotions. She caught herself speeding up to catch them several times, and almost threw her stake twice, stopped only by the Vikings between her and her target.

Then the worst happened; one of the Vikings following the dragon turned, looking her way. She froze; movement was the easiest thing to see in darkness, and hopefully his night vision was ruined by the torches his part carried.

The man shrugged and turned back. Astrid continued to stalk them. When the group turned off onto a side street, she followed, approaching the corner and stopping just short of it, readying her ax. If they had noticed her, this would be the place to ambush her; it was what she would have done. She hoped they had.

She turned the corner and saw nothing.

A heavy weight slammed into the back of her legs, and she crumpled forward, totally caught unaware. Her bad arm hit the ground and she rolled, ignoring it in her attempt to come up swinging her ax-

"Never try to out-sneak a Thorston," Tuffnut Thorston said, stepping down on her good arm. Ruffnut stepped on her bad arm at the same time.

The butt of a spear knocked her out before she could recover from the all-consuming confusion that came with being ambushed by people she hadn't expected in the slightest.

* * *

Maour stared at the nondescript warehouse. "Why here?"

"Was close," Rotison grumbled. He was nursing a hangover and a black eye he hadn't sported the night before, for some reason. The combination made him even surlier than normal. "Not in use, either."

'So long as she cannot escape,' Toothless said firmly. 'Three guards is good, but there should be one inside, too.'

Maour nodded and said much the same; keeping Astrid securely locked down was important.

"Two inside at all times, too," Rotison confirmed. "We used this one 'cause o' the cage. She's no threat. Weapons on the table."  
"I'm going in," Maour decided. There was something he wanted to do, aside from the need to see it for himself.

'So am I,' Toothless declared.

"Go ahead. If yer gonna interrogate 'er, you gotta clean up the blood," Rotison grumbled. He walked off, rubbing at his black eye.

Maour opened the large warehouse door, slipped inside, and closed it behind Toothless, who followed so close behind he almost walked right over him.

The two aforementioned guards were sitting on either side of the large, empty space, both staring at the metal cage set in the exact center of the warehouse. It was clearly designed to hold something smaller than most dragons but just as dangerous, carefully wrought iron bending and curving around in a way that seemed to be designed to deny any good grip on the enclosure. It was driven into the ground, deeply embedded at each corner, presumably to prevent the occupant from moving it or knocking it on its side.

Astrid, her eyes wild, stood in the center of it all, glaring hatefully. Every so often, her eyes flicked to the ax and stake tossed on the table near the back of the warehouse. It seemed an unconscious act.

Maour stood there for a short while, just taking in the sight. He wasn't the gloating type, and this didn't really feel like victory. She clearly didn't think she had lost yet.

Hopefully, what he had planned would change that. "You lost," he said loudly.

"I'll kill you and every dragon I can get my hands on," Astrid said proudly, glaring at him. "I'll make you suffer first."

"You would have tried."

"I _will_." She sneered at him. "You don't have the guts to kill me, and your precious allies don't kill the wives of Chieftains. I won't be here for long."

"If you think you'll be ransomed back to Dagur, you're wrong," he said, not letting her words get to him. Truth be told, he suspected she was right; she wasn't going to be executed for exactly that reason. It set a precedent that none of his allies liked in the least.

"I will continue to hunt," she said confidently. "I've already taken one of your precious dragons."

"He's fine, by the way," Maour said, more to poke holes in her confidence than anything. "He'll make a full recovery."

"I'll kill that one too," she said, scowling angrily. That had gotten to her. "I'll take my stake and-"

"This stake?" Maour asked, picking up her stake from the table.

"And my ax," she confirmed, gripping the bars of her cage. "I'll take them back and gut that dragon with them, carve-"

"You know," Maour interrupted, "I never understood some things Vikings do. Like this. Who stores the prisoner's weapons within sight of their prison? Or at all?" He held her stake out at his side.

'Like Stoick's ax?' Toothless asked eagerly, eyeing Astrid.

"Just like that," Maour agreed, tossing the stake to the ground and throwing the ax down on top of it.

"Don't you dare," Astrid hissed.

"It just doesn't make sense," Maour concluded. "Toothless?"

'With pleasure.' Toothless leaned down and flamed the weapons, his bright blue fire charring the wood and slowly melting the metal, reducing Astrid's weapons to a pile of burnt wood and liquid metal quickly solidifying into something useless and misshapen.

"And _that_ is going home with me once it cools," Maour declared, grinning at Astrid's murderous expression. "I'll make the metal into a toy for Night Furies, or something like that. Maybe a ball?"

"I'll kill you slowly," Astrid seethed.

"That's the thing," Maour said, turning his back on her to leave. "You were already going to." He didn't have anything to lose by taunting and enraging her; she was already going to do her worst. At least now he knew for a fact that she'd never be using those particular weapons again. It was a small comfort, given she could just get another ax and stake, but a comfort nonetheless. She wasn't in control of the situation, and if things went to plan would never get a chance to find new weapons at all.

* * *

Heather entered the tavern and picked a stool, wishing she could be anywhere else. She felt absolutely horrible, battered and sore with every move, her back rubbing against her borrowed tunic and making even breathing a misery.

But she needed to be present, to see what was going on. Einfari and Togi had both asked her to attend. With many reassurances that she should only go if she felt up to it, but still.

'You know, I _can _feel just how miserable you are,' Einfari reminded her. 'If I try. Why did you say you would go?'

"You all wanted me to." She had forgotten about that; Einfari had access to her sense of touch.

'And if I had thought to do this earlier, I would have taken that back. At least focus on _my _body so you don't have to suffer!'

"Right." She did as told, and sighed with relief. So long as she didn't intend to move or speak, abandoning her sense of feeling for Einfari's was total relief. Given she was only here to observe, that was perfect.

'You really need to get better at remembering what we can do with this link,' Einfari chortled.

"Agreed." It was slightly unnerving, perching on a stool but not feeling herself doing so. She returned to her own senses long enough to reposition herself more securely, and to turn to watch the Chieftains filing in.

Bertha and Aldir sat on one side of the largest table in the otherwise empty tavern, and Mogadon took up a spot opposite them. Maour and Toothless took the next table over, mostly so that Toothless could rest his front half up on top of it, slouching over in a way that was both hilarious and just human enough in posture to be strange. Maour sat beside him.

"We don' need to wait for Rotison, this aint about his island," Mogadon grunted. "We gotta decide wha' we're doin' next."

"And what we're doing with Astrid," Maour added.

"Aye, that too." Mogadon nodded. "Bu' tha's not as urgent. I've got a plan."

'That's not promising, coming from him,' Einfari snorted.

"Out with it, then," Bertha yawned. "Some of us want to get back to sleeping."

'It's past noon,' Toothless observed. 'Is she nocturnal too?'

"We sent their fleet running," Mogadon thundered, standing and spreading his arms. "They're headin' back to their base of operations, to repair and rebuild. That takes time. Time they'll be vulnerable."

"And we know where to go," Aldir said, seeming to catch on. "We can follow a day or two out, get there when they've got everything taken down to repair, and hit hard."

"Two days to fix my fleet's ships," Bertha said eagerly. "Yours?"

"Two," Mogadon confirmed.

"One, for me," Aldir added.

"With the right plan, that could work," Maour acceded. "I'll have to check with my people, but that sounds like a good idea. But what about Astrid?"

"We're not bringin' her," Bertha replied. "That's jus' askin' for trouble. So we can put that off 'till we get back."

'Sounds like everybody is going to go fight,' Einfari said quietly. 'But we're not.'

"My back will be healed by then," Heather said hopefully.

'Maybe, but we are needed here. Mom can't leave Joy or bring her, and dad is in no shape to go anywhere. He needs us.' Einfari snorted. 'Even if he is not saying it right now.'

Heather accessed Einfari's hearing quickly enough to hear Togi's quiet reply. 'I am not arguing with your assessment.'

'So whatever they decide, we're staying,' Einfari concluded. 'We're sitting this one out.'

"Fine." She really couldn't argue; the pain she was currently avoiding her own body to ignore was proof that she wouldn't be in a position to fight in time for this battle. Togi needed them here, and she needed to recover. Whatever Maour and the others planned, it would happen without the Nótts, though they could help with the actual planning.

**_Author's Note: _****The next _3 _chapters of this story are already written and awaiting beta-reading, but I'm being smart this time around, and plan to stick to the current posting frequency for the rest of this story, just in case. We're either 5 or 6 story chapters away from the end, by the way. (And then a huge amount of deleted scenes).**

** So yeah, things are looking up... Stay healthy, everyone, and see you two weeks from now!**


	39. Chapter 39

For the first time in months, Gobber felt relaxed.

Sitting on the deck of a Berserker warship wasn't _inherently _relaxing, of course, and the moaning of the wounded below deck didn't make it any better, but none of that could compare with the cold sea breeze and dark night sky. He was alone and didn't have to worry about Astrid.

No worry at all. She wasn't on the ship, and he was willing to wager his good hook that she hadn't made it off the island. There was only one other ship trailing along behind the main armada, and they had already made contact. Astrid wasn't there either.

She had probably fallen in combat. The dragon hunter hadn't come out all that well against real, beefy Vikings looking to behead anybody stupid enough to attack their village.

He sighed, leaned back against the main mast, and took off his peg leg. There was something appropriate about her likely dying to a real Viking because her need to hunt had taken her too far into danger. He hoped that had happened. It didn't feel as good as killing her himself, to get revenge for Stoick, but it would do. He was a practical man.

If she had died. He couldn't be sure. He _thought _so; they had abandoned her in hostile territory, and even those who fled hadn't gotten out unscathed. It made sense. But if she survived, his cover was still safe; she herself had ordered him to flee.

Either way, he wasn't done yet. At some point, his spying would pay off big time, and he'd help end this fight in Maour's favor. If that meant going back to Dagur and reporting his crazy wife dead, well then…

No, he wouldn't do that. He'd just say that Astrid had told them to leave. Who was to know what had happened to her on that island? She might still be out there, lurking in the shadows and waiting to assassinate any Night Fury oblivious enough to get close.

It was a good thing he had long since learned to not worry so much about things he couldn't change, else he would definitely be worried for Maour's sake. But the boy, no, the _man_, could take care of himself. Astrid was the one at a huge disadvantage; Thor, he might be the one who got to kill her.

He hoped so. He looked up at the cloudy sky and hoped the thick smog wasn't what he thought it was; he didn't want this trip to be over yet. The solemn, slow procession of a soundly defeated fleet had never felt so victorious. There was something to be said about working for the other side, for sure. He could enjoy his enemy's failures and dismay first-hand.

So long as he didn't die in the process. He reattached his peg leg and stood, examining the bits of horizon he could see past the main bulk of the fleet. An ominous red glow rose in the distance, validating his worries. They really were almost back.

* * *

Gobber found Dagur and Savage talking to two very nervous Berserkers. He felt much the same, but hid it behind a false drunken leer and swayed as he approached them.

"I don't see why you're complaining!" Dagur yelled, pointing up at the rumbling volcano. "That is _awesome_, and we are staying!"

"We migh' lose half the fleet if it erupts!" one said worriedly. "It's been gettin' worse since ye left!"

"You know what?" Dagur asked, turning to Savage. "Are you scared too?"

"No, sir!" Savage said vehemently. "Way I see it, nobody else will 'ave the guts to come near."

"Well that's no good either," Dagur grumbled, mollified. "Okay, you two get to work. The next person I hear complaining about the volcano gets thrown in!"

Both Berserkers ran, bolting for the damaged ships that were pulling into the hastily assembled docks. Gobber cleared his throat, alerting Dagur to his presence.

"Yes, peggy?" Dagur asked derisively. "Where's my wife?"

"Doin' Thor's work," Gobber slurred. "Said ta take the men and get goin', stayed on the island." Beneath the drunken facade he had perfected, he was tense and ready to fight, his hook arm twitching restlessly. He'd rather go out fighting if there was a choice to be had; being executed by a displeased madman wasn't honorable at all.

"She _stayed_?" Savage said incredulously.

"She stayed," Dagur sighed dreamily, his mood softening in an instant. "_That_ is the sign of a true Berserker. I wish I was there with her. Killing, cutting and stabbing, instead of dealing with idiots scared of volcanoes."

"She might be dead or captured by now," Savage interjected, taking over as Dagur's auxiliary voice of reason. "Why didn't you stop her?"

"We were in the middle of battle, she'd 'ave gutted me 'erself," Gobber objected. "She'll be fine."

"Yes, she will, and when she returns I will…" Dagur stopped, staring at something over Gobber's shoulder. He drew his ax and threw so fast only Gobber's war-honed reflexes saved him.

A bloody gurgle from behind Gobber stopped him from attacking. He stood, brushed himself up, and glanced back at the man who had suffered Dagur's lightning-quick judgment.

"Was that the one we sent to deal with the Rockbreaker?" Savage asked, unperturbed by the sudden death.

"Yes, and he was scared," Dagur griped, walking over to the corpse and retrieving his ax. "He failed."

That, Gobber noted, was the treatment he might have received had Dagur taken the news about Astrid more… sanely. "Failed at wha'?" he asked innocently.

"The handoff," Savage elaborated. They both fell into step behind Dagur, who was visibly seething as he approached the ship the hapless Berserker had come from. It was sporting a hole in the side, one Gobber recognized. It was the other ship that had been behind the main armada in the retreat.

"O' what?"

"Our prisoner for a Night Fury," Savage explained. "Son o' the Rockbreaker Chief, and 'e knew what was goin' ta happen."

"Judgin' by the 'ole," Gobber guessed as they stepped aboard, "I'd say it went fine, but they didn' get away." He was thankful for that; if a Night Fury was taken captive, his position here would grow far more dangerous, because he'd have to save it somehow. They were far too valuable and dangerous to be left in the hands of Dagur or Astrid, though the latter would just kill it.

"Report!" Dagur snapped at the first Berserker he found on deck.

"Trade successful, bu' two Night Furies and the girl broke in and took it back," the man blurted out. "One dead on our side, but we think we shot two of the dragons on the way out. They probably died soon after."

Gobber snorted at that; he knew an embellishment when he heard one. Even if they had gotten the dragons with a few arrows, it almost always took more than a few with any real dragon. There was a reason besides honor and glory that Berk preferred bolas and no other type of ranged weaponry.

"And I should not kill you _why_?" Dagur stressed.

"We did our best!" the man objected.

"And you'll do better next time!" Dagur turned on his heel and stalked off the ship, muttering under his breath. "Can't have anyone do it, have to do everything myself, sister spiting me…"

"Sir, what are we doing next?" Savage asked, running to catch up with his Chieftain. "We still got half the fleet, and those that returned will be ready in a few days."

"We're going to go pick up my amazing wife and find out what her kill count is, of course," Dagur said coldly, his mood once again swinging in the abrupt fashion Gobber had long since gotten used to. "Back to that miserable bootprint of an island."

"Right!" Savage said eagerly. "And if they come to attack us here?"

Dagur looked up at the volcano looming ominously above them. It chose that moment to rumble and shake the dock under their feet. "They might. They'll be itching for revenge once Astrid starts killing them. Half the men on repair, and half at the ready at all times."

"That'll double the repair time," Gobber said thoughtfully. He wasn't sure what to push for here; if Maour and his allies were coming to attack, then Dagur having half his forces battle-ready surely wasn't part of their plan, but if they weren't, then it would slow Dagur and given them time to regroup.

"But it sounds worth it," he concluded. Maour wasn't one to make rash decisions or counterattack. He hadn't changed _that _much. It wouldn't hurt for Dagur to waste time on paranoia.

* * *

The pack was flying to war once again, and this time, Maour knew for sure that there would be a fight when they arrived. They were bringing the fight with them, flying in the air and sailing far below, moving silently under the cover of night. A large, dense cloud ahead marked their destination.

He wished he felt more confident; they had overwhelming air superiority, but Heather's report on how the last battle had gone had given him reason to feel concerned. The Berserkers had ways to strike at them, and numbers to make their tactics effective if they weren't too busy to use them.

The fleet below would be taking care of that, in theory. They had come up with a daring plan that _should _put the Berserkers in too much immediate danger to bother firing into the sky in the hopes of hitting what they couldn't see.

But luck might not be on their side. Maour looked to either side, taking in the dragons that were flying toward danger and an uncertain future.

They were gathered in three groups, two small and one large, separated by only a few wing lengths. Next to Toothless, gliding on a current of warm air, Cloey flew, her face grim. Of all of them, she had the most combat experience, and knew better than any what they faced. Maour was fairly certain she would fight the most viciously of all of them, should the need arise.

Down and to the left of Toothless, flying closer to the water, were three Eldurs. Eldurvatn, Eldurhjarta, and Eldurský looked as they likely felt; out of their depth. They were Night Furies, but unlike the other three families, they put their pride in their knowledge above all else. They were ill-prepared to deal with this, but they had come anyway. In the end they _were _Night Furies. He didn't doubt that they would fight well when the time came.

And then, over to the right, was the only family that had come in its entirety, lacking young or injured to care for. The seven Myrkurs flew in a rowdy, disordered crowd, constantly switching positions or vying for the twins, who leaped from dragon to dragon at every available opportunity. Myrkurheili in particular seemed to be enjoying himself. He had flown all the way out to Mahelmetan to catch up with them in time to come along.

"I don't know who I should be more worried for," Maour admitted. "The Myrkurs or the Eldurs."

'They can handle themselves,' Cloey rumbled. 'So long as they stick to the plan, that is.'

'So you are saying that he should worry for the Myrkurs?' Toothless asked.

'Yes, I am,' she confirmed. 'But you should not worry at all,' she continued, looking at Maour. 'This is dangerous, but worrying will not help.'

"Yeah, I know." It just wasn't easy, especially with the large, ominous cloud they were approaching. He suspected it was ash from the volcano, and he wasn't sure what that would mean. Their plan hadn't accounted for ash. At best, it would be an ignorable annoyance, but at worst…

He didn't know what would be the worst-case scenario. They couldn't fly in it? But they could fly in clouds, and dragons could breathe fire. Maybe humans couldn't breathe it… But then how was a whole armada anchored around the island?

He held his doubts, not wanting to bother his mother or brother with them. Once they reached the cloud, they'd figure out what needed to be changed in their plan to account for it. The plan was definitely going forward no matter what; he knew better than to try and turn back an allied fleet full of Vikings anticipating glorious battle, and abandoning them wasn't an option.

It really was too bad the Nótts had been forced to sit this one out; he could really have used Togi turning his formidable intelligence on the problem, just for his own peace of mind.

He hoped Togi was recovering well, and Heather too. He hoped that this would be the last real battle of the war Dagur and Astrid had forced upon them, though that was not likely.

He hoped for a lot of things, but at least hope was better than worry.

* * *

Dagur was doing what he had done every night since returning from the assault on Mahelmetan, but for some reason it just wasn't enough on this particular night.

He stopped in his restless patrol of the makeshift docks to stare up at the ever-present volcano, hoping for a loud rumble or minor earthquake. Nothing happened, though he knew that it was only a matter of time, and not much time at that.

As much as he hated to admit… anything, really, when it meant he was in the wrong, the two spineless cowards who had complained about the volcano being dangerous weren't wrong. It was entertaining, the peak of nature's chaotic awesomeness on a grand scale, but it would destroy his fleet if it erupted in earnest, and what else could it be building up to?

No matter. They'd probably be leaving before that, and what was life without a few life-threatening risks hanging over one's head at all times? It kept his men sharp and on edge, whether they were repairing ships or sitting in strategic positions all along the docks and lower slopes of the volcano, watching the dark, ashy sky that had not let any sunlight through in three days.

The ships anchored by the docks were all empty, either freshly repaired and ready to go, or half-gutted and fated to never sail again, cannibalized for wood, which was surprisingly scarce here. Who would have thought a fire-spitting mountain would clear away the flammable greenery?

The patrol was useless, but it was an activity to waste his night on, a way to keep moving and make sure there was no funny business going on in the empty ships, such as men who might be stealing a few extra winks of sleep when they should be working with their brethren. Dagur would make sure _they_ would sleep forever.

Enforcing efficiency and punishing shirkers; it was a boring job with an occasionally fun side-benefit. He would have had _more _fun messing with Astrid, whether riling her up or calming her down, but she wasn't here.

She would be here. Any day now, a ship would sail up and she would descend with Night Fury heads aplenty, or maybe she would be waiting on Mahelmetan when he returned, the village in smoking ruins, corpses everywhere.

Surely she was revelling in a slaughter. There was no way she had been captured or killed, and he would kill anyone who said otherwise. Savage was the exception, of course, but his second in command had learned not to bring up the possibility after a few trips into the murky water that surrounded the island.

A flash of jealous anger ran through Dagur like a lightning bolt, and he drove his ax into the side of a scrapped warship, angered beyond reason. He was here, far from the bloodshed, while she did as she pleased-

He closed his eyes, yanked the ax out of the ship, and continued on his patrol, forcing the anger away. If he let it linger and fester now, he'd be in a towering fury the next time he saw her, and she would respond in kind. It would only take one _real _argument to kill one or both of them, because if he snapped then she would and somebody would wind up dead. And that just wasn't fun.

Dagur walked down the docks, looking over each ship. He had no eye for carpentry, and half the time he couldn't be sure whether a given warship was fixed or scrap wood floating in the water. Only obvious hints like freshly-sanded patchwork or haphazardly removed boards let him know. He didn't really care, so long as his people did good work. Savage could check the quality, or Gobber if the perpetual drunkard felt up to the task.

He dismissed Gobber from his thoughts almost immediately; the former Berkian came with Astrid, and did a remarkably good job of keeping out of the way when it counted. No reason to think about him at all.

A rumble caught his attention, and he spun, looking up at the volcano again. Was it just spitting out a little more red-hot rock, or another cloud of ash?

No, there was something different about this sound, and he didn't feel it in the ground. it was creaky and watery, almost…

He turned back to the ship, looking at those closest to him. They shifted on the waves, blocking his view of the ocean beyond. Mostly. One dipped in the water as a wave hit it just right, revealing nothing but more ash and smoke.

Then it kept dipping, slowly defying the up and down motion of the water. He squinted at it, wondering if his madness was beginning to include hallucinations. Ships didn't spontaneously sink, and this wasn't one of the scrapped warships, this was one that had been repaired.

A lithe, dark figure emerged onto the deck and leaped over to the next ship, disappearing below in a fluid motion.

Not a hallucination, a saboteur! He considered raising the alarm for all of the time it took to run over to the side of the ship and board it, and then dismissed the idea. This was a great distraction, and it would cease to be fun if he brought the full might of his people down on them too quickly.

That decided, he stomped his way down into the hold, making sure that the trapped saboteur knew he was coming. Ambushes weren't fun, and he knew there was only one way out of this particular kind of warship.

Sure enough, a knife whipped through the air just above his head, hitting the ceiling and dropping to the ground with a clatter. He laughed loudly and lunged forward, slashing with his ax, a spurt of blood fountaining from where he struck.

In moments, the tall saboteur was on her back, her golden hair spilling out from under her hood, and he had his ax to her throat.

"Ugh," he groaned, looking at the mess the remains of her right arm was making on the floor. "I was looking forward to a long interrogation."

"Feel free…" she spat defiantly. "Stay a while."

Dagur noticed the sound of water rushing coming from the back of the hold, and kicked her side irritably. "Come on, you were only down here for a few seconds!"

"I'm good at my job," she said faintly. Defiant to the last, at least; he couldn't stand it when his enemies died sniveling cowards before he had even done anything.

A faint whine could be heard outside; he tilted his head, trying to remember where he had heard such a noise before. It was muffled by the wooden deck and the gurgling of the sinking ship he was standing in, but it almost sounded like-

With a curse, he dropped his ax on her, pulled it back up, and ascended back up onto the deck, leaving her body to sink with the ship. A quick vault over the side had him back on the dock, and he stumbled to a stop just short of the island proper, planting a knee on the stone to balance himself. An explosion rocked the ships to his right, and the entire island was shaking as the volcano rumbled ominously.

More explosions dotted the makeshift docks; men were yelling and falling into position, firing into the sky. The Night Furies were not easily seen, but to Dagur's delight, they _were _visible, highlighted against the grey clouds whenever they flew too close to the volcano's glowing summit.

More yelling from the ships drew his attention. Catapults were firing, raiding warships sailing in and wrecking all in their path, some drawing close to the land and letting their warriors off to fight on foot.

All was chaos, glorious and intense, and his side was _ready_ for the fight that had been brought to them. He cackled happily, charging into the nearest fray with his ax at the ready, gleefully laying into the Vikings who dared to assault his people. That particular group was dead far too soon for his tastes.

He stepped aside, wiping a spatter of blood off his face, and looked for the next most interesting fight. There were plenty of places to choose from; half a dozen different ships had docked and were releasing hordes of enemies. Every time his people engaged on a new front, dragons swooped in to blast them to pieces, getting in free hits while his people were distracted by the prospect of hand-to-hand combat, which he knew from experience was far more interesting than firing at the sky.

Savage ran up to him, obviously having not entered the fray himself, not sporting even the smallest of wounds. "Sir, an ambush!"

"I can _see_ that!" Dagur yelled, cuffing Savage and knocking his helmet off. "Tell me something useful or go fight!"

"The dragons are picking our men off, but I got the crossbow formations into position," Savage reported, redeeming himself slightly with good news that promised more bloodshed. As if to punctuate him, a hail of crossbow bolts climbed into the sky, falling into the ocean beyond with a dull hail of splashes that Dagur could hear in the momentary lull between Night Fury dive bombings.

"Aim's not good," Dagur grunted, breaking into a jog and forcing Savage to run alongside him or be left behind.

"Nothing much to aim for, though they're staying below the clouds, so they're not out of reach," Savage explained. "I think the ash is stopping them from going too high."

"I _told _you this place was great," Dagur said smugly.

"Yes, sir, you did," Savage admitted. "But we can only see them when they're by the peak, and we can't shoot there. It's too far."

"Give me solutions, not problems!" He slowed to navigate a tricky patch of boulders, hopping over one and sliding down the next. The group of crossbow-wielding Berserkers was close, standing atop a larger boulder that would, if they had a moment's notice, shelter them from Night Fury strikes, provided they could jump off and hide behind it in time.

"We could turn our fire on the enemies we can see," Savage offered.

"Attention!" Dagur bellowed, ignoring that boring idea so thoroughly he was sure he'd forget it soon. "Hold your fire until further notice!"

The men lowered their crossbows, looking to him expectantly. As they should.

He paced among them, trying to think. He wanted to down at least one Night Fury tonight, ideally all of them, but one would do, and to down them meant filling them full of arrows, or in this case crossbow bolts.

He looked out upon the battlefield, hoping to see something useful. The boulder was a good place to take in the whole scene at once.

Some of his ships were gone, half sunk or entirely below the waves, conspicuous gaps in the lines of warships. Others were on fire, though not many; as a part of preparing for just such an ambush, he had ordered the repaired ships periodically drenched in seawater. They weren't catching as easily as they would otherwise.

And then there were the ships breaking the otherwise clean lines of Berserker sails and insignia, half a dozen Meathead warships, and over at the far side of the docks, two Bog-Burglar craft, which were even now just pulling away, their work done.

The Meatheads were pushing forward, capturing ground, or in this case docks, as they seemed reluctant to set foot on the island itself, where constant rumbles were more than capable of unbalancing anyone not accustomed to always holding themselves ready for the ground to shake.

They weren't capturing _much _ground, though, which he also attributed to being ready for such an event. The men he had stationed at even intervals around the docks had entered the fray immediately, hindering their initial advance. One of the six fronts was already turning in his side's favor, his men striking down Meatheads left and right, breaking their tight formation into an all-out brawl with no clearly defined lines.

_That _was good. He looked up at the sky, turning his attention to the one thing that made this so much more than just another war between Vikings. The demons soared above, not _quite _as invisible in the night as they should be. He could catch flashes of movement, places where the perfectly grey, backlit ash clouds were momentarily darkened by quick blurs darting by.

"Sir, while you think, our men here could aid the far Western front," Savage suggested, pointing at one of the fights that wasn't going quite as well. They had a clean line of sight from here to there, the Meatheads oblivious to the danger they were putting themselves in to pursue their faltering opposition down the length of the docks.

"Do that," Dagur agreed, watching only long enough to make sure his men were making a difference. Those bolts were precious; every one spent was one less chance to take down a Night Fury once he had a plan for that.

Night Furies… He returned his attention to the sky. Somewhere, Maour was up there. Maybe his sister too, but surely she'd survive a fall. The dragon would take the hit. And if not, oh well. That was what happened when one defied the will of the Berserkers. People got hurt.

Just as Savage had said, they weren't going into the clouds of ash. He could tell; the dark blurs never disappeared, always darting faster than the eye could follow when they were so hard to make out. If they were going into the ash, he'd never see any of them. The smart thing would be to hide up there only to strike.

And they were striking, but not like that. The haunting, exhilarating cries of Night Furies never really stopped now, and every so often a bolt of blue and purple expanded into a fiery explosion in the worst possible place for his people. Not _that _often, but only because his people sometimes followed orders and tried to preemptively fire into the sky whenever they heard the buildup of an incoming strike.

This all would have gone so much worse if he hadn't been ready. If he had been totally focused on repairing as quickly as possible and getting back to Mahelemetan.

"Ha!" he yelled at the uncaring, ominous grey sky. "Take that! I was ready!"

None of his men commented; they knew he was liable to kill whoever bothered him. They continued firing into the now deteriorating Meathead advance-

Said firing was attracting the right kind of attention; Dagur knew in his bones that the newest Night Fury screech was meant for them. "Duck and cover!" he yelled, leaping off the boulder and sheltering on the far side. Men tumbled to the ground to either side of him, landing on top of each other and probably breaking bones in the fall. Nobody said taking shelter was painless.

A blast erupted just behind him, momentarily deafening him in the process, and hurled the last few crossbow men through the air in a beautiful arc of screams and smoke. None of them got back up.

Dagur, on the other hand, sprang to his feet immediately. He knew what to do. "Okay, listen up!" he yelled. "A third of you are going to shoot as many enemies as you can down there. Make a difference, destroy them. The rest of you, aim in the same direction, but don't fire. Wait for my signal, and then fire in the air, in all directions." Bait and then strike.

There was no valorous cry of assent; they weren't the kind of Vikings that wasted time on such things. The silent compliance of Berserkers climbing back up onto the rock and taking aim was enough right now.

Dagur reclaimed his place near the front of the rock, picked up a discarded crossbow, and aimed it at the skirmishes on the docks. He only had one bolt, not having salvaged the accompanying quiver, but he only needed one. He wasn't going to be shooting at the normal enemies.

It wouldn't do to look too interested in the sky, not now that he had a trick in motion. He made a show of surveying the battleground, listening with ringing ears for the next eerily close dragon call to start up.

The battle by the docks was not going well, but it was not going poorly. Two of the invading fronts had combined and were fighting his men to a standstill; he directed the third of his men with him to fire on that particular fight. The front that had been going so well for his side before was gone, his men victorious, while the one they had been firing on previously was now an organized retreat. There were enemies scattered throughout the docks now, fighting in twos and threes, doing more damage than he liked.

But the biggest threat still active was of course the constant rain of fire. He watched as his men bombarded the enemy with lethal or at the very least crippling bolts, wishing he was closer. He couldn't see the bloodshed, or the grievous wounds, not from here. It all looked so clean and boring from a distance, just men falling and lying still while others took their places.

He held still, fighting off the urge to go participate. This was his plan here, he'd see it through, and that was that. Self-control in a fight like this was more important than anything else; he knew all too well that going off the handle was tempting but dangerous when his people needed him to lead, not fight. It was one of the worst parts of being in charge, right behind talking to spineless idiots who held power in other tribes and thus somehow warranted his nonviolent attention. At least he wasn't doing that right now.

Then there was a sound, the screech he was waiting for. He hoped it was Hiccup, but anyone would do. "Hold," he called out, still looking at the ground portion of the battle. "Hold…" The noise was growing louder.

So stupid, to let the enemy know one was coming beforehand. "Fire!" he screamed, jerking his crossbow up and letting loose, aiming at the rapidly approaching smudge of pure darkness against the only mostly dark sky. Bolts from the rest of his men flew alongside his, all going in slightly different directions, but aimed in the right general area.

The rising screech cut off with a choked howl, and a dark body smashed into the rocks only a few dozen paces in front of Dagur, rolling and shredding itself against the hard, unforgiving rocks as it ground to a halt, leaving a thick smear of dark blood in its wake. He let out an incredulous cry of pure triumph and held his arm out, somehow finding it within himself to control his surging desire to go out and gloat over the body.

"Let's see if they try and get it back!" he yelled. "Keep aiming for the sky!" This was _fun!_

* * *

Maour choked on the drifting ash, buried his face in the crook of his elbow, and coughed out something thick and vile.

'This stinks!' Toothless complained, diving lower. 'Literally!'

Maour couldn't spare the breath to reply; he knew the twins were suffering similar difficulties, and it was debilitating, but the lower they got, the more immediate danger they were in. The higher they got, the closer to the stifling ash clouds that floated low in the sky, the more breathing was painful and distracting.

'I see a gathering,' Cloey called out, flying below them. 'Going!'

'Good luck,' Toothless cried out, circling again. They were running interference; in order to keep up a constant, disorienting assault, everyone took turns diving and firing, and that meant everyone needed to keep moving so that the enemy couldn't predict where the next attack would come from. They couldn't count on being totally invisible, not with the glow of the volcano painting the underside of the ash clouds ever so slightly orange.

The environment was just one of the many things going wrong at the moment; Maour watched Cloey dive, and in the process saw the disappointing progress of the land-based assault.

The intent with this attack had been to cripple ships and strike when Dagur had his pants down, to borrow the phrase Camicazi had used in the planning session. The problem was, Dagur definitely hadn't been caught unprepared; there was no way his people were so quick to react to a truly unexpected attack.

Instead of sinking many ships, fighting a quick battle in which Dagur's most alert Berserkers were brought down by surprise and numbers while the Night Furies rained fire, the Vikings who had gone in on foot were stuck in a bloody series of pitched battles, and the Bog Burglar saboteurs had all been rooted out by men who seemed to have been tasked with exactly that sort of thing, forced to flee or join the fight.

And just to top it all off, fire wasn't working so well on the ships. He had to guess that they were pre-soaked to prevent them going up like ready-made torches at the first sign of fire, with all the otherwise flammable sawdust and other byproducts of construction that should be around. It might not even have been an intentional measure to thwart Night Furies; the volcano seemed liable to erupt for real at any time, and the weak winds sometimes carried embers far out from the glowing peak.

Cloey completed her strike successfully, dodged a few scattered rounds of crossbow fire with ease, and powered back up to them. 'Looks bad down there,' she panted, not as severely affected by the ash as he was, but also not immune to it. 'Long range group causing trouble again.'

'Got it,' Eldurvatn called out. He dove in turn, flying in at an angle that Maour would have considered risky had the group in question not been so obviously fixated on slaughtering one particular group of Meatheads and Waxears holding their own on the docks-

'No!' Toothless barked at the same moment as Eldurvatn's diving screech cut off. Maour looked down to see a hail of crossbow bolts, far more at once than he'd seen in this entire battle, cross through the sky, a large patch in the middle missing, as Eldurvatn plummeted.

His heart plummeted with the falling dragon, and he knew from the impact alone that Eldurvatn was dead. The dragons around him all screeched in rage, especially when a few of the Berserkers began clambering over the rocks toward Eldurvatn's body.

'Don't attack!' Cloey barked out, ending with a hoarse cough. 'Look, they are ready. It was a trick.'

'My son!' Eldurský cried out. 'He might still be alive!'

'He's not,' Cloey retorted, sounding horrified but sure. 'Don't die proving that.'

'Maour,' Blast roared, 'where should we hit? We should all go in at once and get revenge!'

'No,' Toothless snarled. 'Look, the humans are retreating. They'll all fire at us.'

Maour knew his brother was right; he could see the Meatheads, Waxears, and Bog Burglars all falling back, disheartened. They had all seen or heard Eldurvatn going down, and it was as disheartening for them as it was encouraging for the Berserkers. All of the fronts were in retreat now, falling back to the ships they had arrived on.

'We need to cover them,' Cloey cried out. 'Screech like you are diving, distract them, make them focus on us but give them no targets!'

Toothless roared in agreement, and soon Maour was forced to cover his ears, the raw anger and rage everyone was putting into their roars overwhelming, so loud he felt like the very air was shaking.

Then he realized that the volcano was rumbling too, and understood that it wasn't just the dragons around him making noise. He looked over to the volcano, wondering whether it was going to erupt now, and turn the tide somehow. That was what he would expect, were this a story being told to him, one where the side of right always won in the end.

The volcano did nothing but rumble as the Berserkers harried the retreating Vikings, only slightly hindered by having to keep one eye on the sky at all times. It felt like only a matter of moments before the ships were putting out, the Meatheads and others throwing off the last few Berserkers and setting sail, retreating in earnest.

Then other ships began to move. Berserkers, unwilling to let the fight end yet. Toothless stooped into a steep dive, and Maour held on tight, unable to do anything but operate the tailfin and watch, rendered unable to even call out advice by the choking ash and soot in the air.

They leveled out just above the water's surface, soaring at high speed so close that a wake dragged behind them. Toothless let out two quick shots and angled away before anyone could so much as aim at him, let alone fire, and put two small holes in the side of the fastest pursuing ship.

The small amount of satisfaction Maour got from seeing them so easily cripple an enemy ship was more than tempered by how limited they really were. Toothless had maybe three more shots, which meant only one more ship taken down, and not so easily now that the Berserkers were expecting it.

Cloey and a few of the Myrkurs dove in to ambush the next closest pursuing ship, and put a half-dozen holes in it in as many moments, though a small wave of crossbow bolts chased them away almost immediately. Myrkurheili contorted midair to pull a bolt from his paw, roaring at the ship as he retreated.

'They are learning not to follow,' Toothless noted grimly, looking back. 'Without a full fleet to cover them, we can obliterate anything they send out.'

"But they've still got a fleet," Maour said, pointing out the obvious. "Let's go meet up with Aldir." He wanted another perspective on how the battle had gone, and Aldir was the Chieftain most likely to give it without posturing or off-color jokes from Camicazi that he just wasn't in the mood to deal with.

* * *

Aldir was on the deck of one of his tribe's warships, staring back at the volcanic island as they fled. He only looked back briefly as Maour and Toothless dropped down behind him.

"That didn't go well," Maour began, more than willing to admit as much. "How much damage did we really do?"

"You would know better than I, seeing from above," Adlir replied solemnly, "but I think we did enough. It's how much we lost in return that marks this a failure."

"Yeah, we get that," Maour sighed, leaning against the same railing. He felt horrible. Eldurvatn was dead, shot down by the Berserkers. Was there some strategy he could have employed to prevent tricks like that, not knowing that such a thing would happen?

"My condolences," Aldir said, turning to him. "I don't know what, exactly, your connection to each dragon is, or which fell-"

"Eldurvatn," Maour cut in. It was important that the Chieftains, starting with Aldir, know that it was a person who had fallen. He could imagine the way they would all talk about a downed Night Fury if he didn't set them straight from the start, and it just wasn't right. "The oldest son of his family. He had a younger brother and two younger sisters."

"And in a community as small and tightly-knit as yours, every loss is personal," Aldir said quietly. "I understand. If it helps, this fight was not an outright disaster. We did what we came to do."

'Not well enough,' Toothless grumbled.

"They still have plenty more ships and people," Maour said, repeating his brother in different words. "This war will continue, and Dagur is going to go all out now." Especially since they had Astrid. Mahelmetan was going to be in serious trouble as soon as Dagur's forces recovered. Better there than the Isle, though he felt callous for thinking so.

"Yes, and this time we will be ready," Aldir said firmly. "Can you set a Night Fury to remain here, and come to us the moment Dagur's fleet sets out?"

'That's a good idea, but it's dangerous,' Toothless said worriedly.

"I'll find out if any are willing to risk it," Maour agreed. It _was _a good idea, and something he could _do _instead of just standing around feeling terrible for the Eldurs.

* * *

Toothless didn't like how quiet and miserable his brother was. He knew Maour was taking Eldurvatn's death hard, though he was hiding the depth of his grief surprisingly well.

What was worse, Toothless couldn't in good conscience try and get Maour to grieve properly for their friend, not while they were stuck flying by and sleeping on ships filled with Vikings, who had a tendency to strike at weakness, even among allies. If Mogadon or his son, Thuggory, picked up on Maour's distress, they would probably poke at it verbally and just make it worse.

So, he resolved to bring it up as soon as they had returned to Mahelmetan, which was far less close-quarters and more private, and resigned himself to helping his brother cope in less dangerous ways. Such as finding out who was willing to remain behind and watch.

They landed on the deck of a Bog Burglar ship, just a few paces away from a dozen of their kin. This particular ship had been designated as their sleeping place for the trip here, with only enough human crew to keep it moving in the right direction, and now it was the place they all landed to recuperate, and in the case of the Eldurs, to mourn.

He wished he wasn't so familiar with this particular sight, that of a family of dragons huddled together, keening softly, but he was. Both he and his mother, who was speaking to them and trying to comfort them, knew it well. This was not their first bloody war.

'It will be a Myrkur,' he murmured to Maour, turning away from the Eldurs.

"Yeah, I had figured as much," Maour agreed. "Myrkurheili?"

'He knows the area.' Toothless walked around the Myrkurs, looking for the one they needed. Ruffnut and Tuffnut were laying back against Blast and Boom, snoring up a storm, and the other Myrkurs were clustered together, speaking softly.

'What's happening here?' Toothless asked. If they were planning to fly back and get revenge, he'd have to shut them down somehow. That was asking to get killed.

'We are discussing whether bringing Vængur was a bad idea,' one of them murmured.

The youngest Myrkur, and thus the most vulnerable. Eldurvatn's death had hurt the Myrkurs too, scared them into being more sensible than they otherwise might be. 'He is young for all of this,' Toothless agreed.

'Yeah,' Myrkurvængur himself agreed timidly. 'But I want to help!'

'It is a family decision,' Myrkurheili said, looking at Toothless and Maour. 'We will make it.'

'Yes, but when you have a moment, we need to ask you something,' Toothless agreed, awkwardly segueing into the reason they had approached the Myrkurs in the first place.

'They're the parents,' Myrkurheili replied, stepping away from the huddle. 'What do you want?'

"Is there a safe place to stay around here?" Maour asked. "We need to have someone hang around and wait for Dagur to send the fleet out again, and then come back to tell everyone so we're prepared."

'I'll do it,' Myrkurheili immediately volunteered. 'There are a few sea stacks just out of the ash that I can sleep on. I am supposed to come back when they set out?'

"When the whole fleet goes. If one or two ships leave or arrive, stay. We need to know when the next big attack is on the way."

'Understood,' Myrkurheili rumbled.

'Oh,' Toothless added, thinking of something that might conceivably help. 'We have a human spy. If a fat human with two false limbs approaches you, he might be ours.'

"But don't just trust because of that," Maour objected. "He wouldn't have any reason to come to you and break his cover."

'I don't plan to let anyone know I exist, so I don't think that will matter,' Myrkurheili agreed. 'But thank you for the warning.' He returned to the huddle, presumably to tell his family what he was going to be doing.

"Why did you tell him about Gobber, bud?" Maour asked. "There's no way it will come up unless he's captured and Gobber tries to break him out."

'It's information he might need… And if that does happen, at least he will know that Gobber isn't lying,' Toothless reasoned.

"I really hope that doesn't happen," Maour murmured. "We've lost one too many already."

'Agreed.' This wasn't a total defeat, but it certainly felt like one, fleeing the enemy under an ashy sky, licking their wounds and mourning the fallen, unable to even keep Eldurvatn's body out of the enemy's hands.


	40. Chapter 40

There was something surreal about sharing a hut with a dragon.

Heather walked into the main room of the hut, rubbing her eyes clear, and almost tripped over Togi's tail. He was asleep on the floor, but not in his usual spot by the far wall. His body took up most of the empty space in the hut; Rotison had not provided anything more than the bare minimum he thought they wouldn't be able to complain about.

Luckily for him, Togi liked the close quarters, so they weren't complaining. Besides, whining about living conditions while their friends were all off fighting a battle seemed wrong on a fundamental level.

'How's dad?' Einfari asked, checking in on Heather's senses just as she was prodding the long-dead ashes of the fire.

'Sleeping.' She knew that would be reassuring; sleep did not come for Togi as often as it should. She suspected being in a human building on a human island, and seriously injured to boot, was making it much harder than it should be.

'Good. I just checked the storage building. All good there.'

"Perfect." Astrid hadn't escaped since the last time one of the Nótts had checked, late the night before. Rotison's people hadn't slacked off yet, but Heather and Einfari were _not _taking chances with the most dangerous person on the island. Nóttreiði would stick his head in to look in on her around noon, and then Einfari at dusk. Night checks were even more frequent, happening irregularly, whenever one of the Nótts felt like it.

In that way, they could reassure Togi that there was no real danger.

Heather moved over to the back door of the hut and checked the deadbolt. Another precaution; making Togi feel safe was a hard task, given how paranoid he could be. The deadbolt was good, and luckily for her, this particular hut had no windows.

'Need fire?' Togi asked sleepily.

"I'm going out and Einfari is coming in," Heather replied, "so no. Thank you, though."

'Glad to help…' he rumbled sleepily, shifted on his side, and flinched.

"How are you feeling today?" Heather asked. She tried to ignore the downright appalling pattern of intricate scars visible on his underside. He might feel comfortable with letting her see it, a privilege only for those he considered family, but staring would be rude.

'Better than ever,' he groaned.

"Really?" she asked skeptically, picking up her bow and quiver and holstering her ax.

'No,' he admitted, laboriously rolling to his paws and standing. He flexed each of his front paws in turn, in a routine Eldurhjarta had made him memorize before she left with the rest of the pack, then rolled his wing shoulders.

Heather hated the many short pauses and growls he let out during the process, and the way his three paws quivered every time he lifted the fourth was just sad. She was _not _used to seeing Togi injured and struggling.

'Still fierce jabbing pain when I move my neck or paw,' he reported clinically. 'I feel weak and shaky when standing, of course. Breathing hurts if I do it too quickly.'

"Got it. No change." She made her way over to him and crouched by his side, one hand going to the bandage she had applied the night before. "Does this hurt?"

'Of course,' he grunted, flinching as she pushed on the canvas covering his chest wound. 'It is things like this that make me question his intelligence. Of course pushing on a wound hurts.'

"Fishlegs would not waste our time," Heather objected. He was the one who, in lieu of Eldurhjarta, was overseeing Togi's recovery, albeit from afar through Eldurberg.

'Have you met him?' Togi grunted. 'His whole family loves to waste time on things that likely will never matter.'

"Yes, but he is too smart to waste _your _time," Heather said with a smile. Pain made Togi grumpy, but she didn't disagree with his assessment. Fishlegs was in many ways the most over the top of the Eldurs she knew, probably because he was surrounded by people who encouraged him. It was endearing, but only from afar, in small doses, as she had learned over the last week. There was a reason she was the one to deal with Eldurberg and by extension Fishlegs; Einfari didn't like him, Nóttreiði didn't have the patience, and Togi wasn't supposed to be in charge of caring for himself while he recovered, per Eldurhjarta's orders.

'Speaking of time…' Togi craned his neck, moving slowly to avoid aggravating his wound, and looked directly at her. 'Will you ask?'

"Definitely." The pure longing in his voice clued her in to what he meant; he wanted to know how long it would be until he could fly home. She wished she could bring him good news, but Fishlegs was all but guaranteed to say that it would be a long while yet. Such serious wounds did not heal quickly, not even for dragons.

'See you this evening,' he said politely as she stood to leave.

'Sleep well,' she said cheerfully, stepping out into the bright sunlight-

And, in the moment it took her eyes to adjust, stepping right into Eldurberg, who was waiting just in front of the door. "Hey!" she exclaimed, tripping over a Night Fury for the second time that morning.

'Sorry!' Eldurberg stuck his head out and caught her before she could land face first across his front paws.

"Don't worry about it," she said graciously. "Is Fishlegs ready?"

'Watching now,' Eldurberg replied.

"Right. No change from yesterday, and yes, pressing on the wound hurts. It'd help if you told me why you had me check that." She had found that it was easier to pretend she was talking directly to Eldurberg, but that was difficult when he stared at her blankly, clearly just waiting for her and Fishlegs to be done.

'It's to check for infection. If it _really _hurts, then there might be a problem,' Eldurberg explained.

"Got it. And just to check, what's the estimate for how long until he can go home?"

'Weeks, probably months,' Eldurberg said solemnly. 'But Fishlegs says Nóttskarpur told him she will be flying out to visit as soon as someone she trusts comes home to watch Nótthljóður.'

"Really?" That would have to be either Einfari or Nóttreiði, neither of which had gone home since the fight, feeling they were needed with their father. She would have to see if one of them would go just to give Skarpur a chance to visit her mate. Really, they should have thought of such an arrangement before now. The difficulties in communicating directly were probably to blame for that.

'He says yes,' Eldurberg relayed. 'And _I _get to fly as soon as my sister gets back and checks my wing.' He flared his injured wing to show off the rapidly closing gap in the membrane.

"Good for you, but if you tell Nóttleiðtogi that, one of us will make sure you're grounded as long as he is," she threatened. The last thing Togi needed was someone bragging about how quickly they were healing.

'I never even see him, cooped up in that hut all day,' Eldurberg grumbled, taken aback. 'Have a nice day. Fishlegs says goodbye.' He turned and bounded away, leaping up far higher than he needed to in an obvious attempt to feel like he was flying. It looked absolutely hilarious.

'Someone should talk to him about maintaining our reputation,' Einfari said, landing on their hut. Nóttreiði landed beside her and watched Eldurberg's departure, his ears flat against his neck and his eyes wide, clearly offended by the silliness of it all.

"Feel free," Heather offered. "Who's staying with Togi today?"

'Me. I thought you and Nóttreiði could go walk through the village,' Einfari proposed. 'There are ships docking, and we both want to know what is happening. I can watch, tell Father what you're seeing, and Nóttreiði can go with you.'

Heather knew far better than to think that was Einfari's only motivation, and from the way Nóttreiði shifted his perch on the roof but didn't object, she knew he saw the other reason too, and wasn't objecting.

Nóttreiði was an enigma, a dragon who reacted to everything in ways she didn't expect. Being captured once had almost broken him, but having his old views on humans validated by being betrayed had simply set him more firmly on the right path.

"Sounds like a plan," she agreed, seeing no harm in it. Spending time with Nóttreiði by walking through the village and investigating what was probably just a few traders setting up shop sounded like a good way to spend a day, and it was certainly better than sitting around and wondering what was happening with the fleet and most of the pack.

Nóttreiði hopped down from the roof, and Einfari dropped down behind him, turning and squeezing through the door Heather had left open, leaving it ajar behind her.

Heather, for her part, smiled at Nóttreiði and began walking, heading in the general direction of the docks. Now that she thought about it, there _were _fewer people about than normal; traders coming in might explain that.

"So," she said after a few moments, "you're interested in human activity?"

'I want to understand,' he said shortly. His response lacked any real annoyance or anger, and was instead incredibly uneasy and awkward, like he didn't know how to act around her anymore.

She understood that; he no longer hated her, truly believed she was as she said, but had hated her for so long. He'd get used to not hating her eventually.

"Well, there's lots to learn," she said cheerfully. "Do you understand humans yet, or just me?"

'Just you and the others from our island,' he said stiffly. 'Haven't spent enough time listening to humans talk.'

"Right. Well, I'll go over the basics once I know what's happening here." The streets were all but abandoned, and she could hear the hum of many voices in the distance. It was a cheerful, eager noise, one that reminded her of celebrations in other villages, events she had seen while passing through, on the run and unable to stop to enjoy the festivities.

They walked on in silence, until finally they turned a corner and saw the crowds they had been hearing. Scores of Vikings swarmed around the docks, men carried large crates to and from three ships that had clearly just arrived, and a fourth was visible on the horizon, sailing in at an impressive pace, so long as one wasn't comparing it to a dragon.

Nóttreiði tensed, stopping where he was. 'This looks hostile,' he said warily.

Heather shook her head. "No, nobody's hostile here. They're traders. Really popular ones." She didn't fully understand that; Vikings were pushy and impatient at the best of times, but the loosely-formed lines to board the traders' ships were moving incredibly quickly, which made no sense. How did they have time to haggle, going that quick? Everyone seemed to be in a huge rush, but not in a bad way.

"Let's go see what they've got on offer," she suggested. There was nothing else to do but dive into the crowd-

'Heather?' Einfari asked, chiming in. 'You _do _realize you're talking to Nóttreiði, right?'

'No,' Nóttreiði objected at the same time, growling under his breath. 'Some of those will be humans who are not allies.'

"Right, I forgot about that." Now that she looked, she could see a few of the obviously foreign visitors staring at them, noticing the silhouette of a dragon in the distance. None of the native Vikings seemed eager to explain, either.

'I will go do something else,' Nóttreiði volunteered.

'Don't let him go,' Einfari immediately objected. 'I wanted you two to spend time together!'

"Way to just admit it," Heather said under her breath, amused. "Or we can just watch from afar," she offered. "I don't have anything to trade, so it's not like I'll be missing out on a good deal."

'What do you mean by trading?' He turned his attention to the seething masses, staring as if unable to comprehend what he was seeing. 'What is the point of all this?'

"I'm not entirely sure why they're all doing everything so fast," Heather replied, watching the street between them and the crowd, just in case a foreigner decided to come investigate what they were seeing, "but generally, the people who sailed in go from island to island, taking some things and giving others, depending on what the people living there need or don't need."

'Like fish?' Nóttreiði asked. 'But can't they get their own? And what do the ones moving around get out of it?'

"Like... " She struggled to find a simple way to explain that would make sense to a dragon who was self-sufficient, didn't even really like other _dragons _outside of his family, and didn't produce anything others would need or want. The culture divide was vast, and Nóttreiði lacked even the very basics in understanding the differences.

"Yes," she eventually continued, "like fish. Imagine you want to eat many different kinds."

'Variety is good,' he agreed.

"But only one kind can be found in the water around the island," she elaborated. "You only get the one. But the dragons on the next island over get a different kind of fish, but only that one."

'So… I would have to go fish there and avoid them in case they do not like me stealing theirs?' he asked.

"Or," Heather objected, "you could talk to them, and you could both agree to fish up more than you need, and share."

He looked over at her, eyes wide and curious in a way she had never seen before. He looked… unguarded. Open. 'And the ones travelling from island to island, they get both kinds of fish without doing any of the work, in exchange for going back and forth all the time. I think I understand.'

'I do too, and so does dad,' Einfari chimed in. 'That was a good explanation.'

"Yes, exactly," Heather said happily. "_That _is what is going on here, on a large scale, with all sorts of things. Everyone cooperating, more or less. And since going from island to island is much more troublesome as a human, trading is more important."

'You say more or less.'

"Yeah, nothing is perfect. Everyone tries to make as much profit, keep as much fish for themselves, as they can. Sometimes people break the system for their own benefit." Thieves, liars and cheats, and those who just attacked traders in transit, though that was frowned upon and could get a tribe in serious trouble.

'Of course, humans would do that,' Nóttreiði grumbled.

"Like the Myrkurs," Heather added, just to mess with him. "Messing with people for personal amusement or gain."

Nóttreiði huffed and looked away.

'You told him,' Einfari crowed.

'And there are things down there that humans want?' Nóttreiði asked, not looking back over at her.

"Yes. Not just food, all kinds of things."

'Then you should go,' he offered again. 'I am hungry, anyway. If we must, we can meet in the fields after?'

Was Nóttreiði actually giving up a chance to avoid her for the rest of the day? Heather nodded, immediately accepting that compromise. She _did _want to go down there long enough to find out what the big deal was, and maybe look around. There could be something useful. A book on dragon injuries and recovery processes would be a godsend, but she'd settle for something interesting to mess with while staying in the hut with Togi.

"Yeah, sure," she agreed. "But I'm going to go back to the hut first, to get something to trade with, just in case."

* * *

Heather had hoped that by leaving with Nóttreiði, going back to the hut, and returning to the docks alone from a slightly different direction, that none of the foreigners would connect her with the girl standing in the company of a dragon they had seen from afar earlier. So far, it seemed to be working.

But even without the extra attention, she didn't like being in the midst of the crowd. Everyone was larger than her, in both height and width, and she felt trapped, standing in one of the rowdy lines leading to a stall hastily erected by one of the traders in front of their ship, in what she believed was an attempt to keep the masses off the ship itself.

Someone shoved her from behind the moment the thick line moved, and she stumbled forward. She whirled and glared at the man who had pushed her, but he just laughed, unconcerned. A foreigner; the people who lived here would all recognize her by now, and all who knew her knew who she represented.

She was almost _used _to being feared or disliked on sight. It was weird to be anonymous again. It reminded her of her time on the run, but for some reason, those memories weren't quite so painful anymore. She rarely thought about that part of her life nowadays.

The line moved again, and she intentionally waited a moment before stepping forward, all but daring the man to push her again. She wasn't going to be pushed around, literally or metaphorically.

And then, far quicker than expected, she was at the front of the line. The trader greeted her with a wide smile. "Weapon, food, or exotic?"

"Uhh… Exotic?" This _wasn't _how trading usually worked, but she wasn't here for anything in particular, so she could just play along without worrying about not getting what she needed.

"High value or low?" The woman pointed at her ax. "Trading something like that?"

"Just some of these," she replied, holding up the bag of various coins. Some of them were leftover from her time on other islands, and most weren't taken on this island, but a trader-

"Let me see." the woman all but snatched the bag from her and opened it. "Good enough. Medium value. Now, give me an idea of what you want."

"Books. Something useful and long." She could feel the pressure of the crowd behind her, everyone for some reason intent on getting their turn as fast as possible. Ironically, the very rush she wanted to ask this trader about prevented her from actually asking.

"Subject?" the woman asked, gesturing behind her to the ship. There was a loud clanking sound, like metal being shoved to the side.

"Healing," she decided. She might as well learn something useful, and reading about it sounded far more interesting than listening to Eldurhjarta.

"Healing books!" the woman called back. A few moments later, a sack was tossed over the side, hitting the docks with a thump. It had to contain at least a dozen different tomes, and looked heavy enough to be used as a weapon in a tight spot.

"Random, or do you want to look through them and pick one?" the trader asked, gesturing for Heather to step aside.

"I'll look, if that's okay." She was glad to get out of line, in any case.

"Just take one, or I'll set my guards on you," the trader warned.

"Got it." She crouched by the sack, mindful of the heavily armed men watching from the ship, and quickly pulled a few out.

None looked at all interesting on first glance, but she wasn't an expert on books. She only knew how to read because she had thought it worth learning a long time ago; she didn't usually seek out books.

She quickly settled on one that seemed, at first glance, to be focused on battlefield injuries, and held it up, waving it at the guards before leaving. Someone jumped off the ship to retrieve the sack before she had taken two steps.

'Okay,' Einfari said, speaking up for the first time since Heather had entered the line, 'can you _please _go ask someone what is going on? It's driving me crazy.'

"Me too. That was really weird." She didn't like this way of doing things at all. Trading was partly about looking over everything the trader had at leisure, seeing unexpected things, talking to the trader. None of that was happening.

A chorus shouts and yells distracted her from her thoughts, and she looked up to see one of the trade ships pulling away from the dock, leaving _already_. They had only been at the island for half a day!

"Hey," Heather called out, making eye contact with a random Viking and walking over to them. "What's going on today? I've never seen anything like this before."

The Viking, a man with a ridiculously large helmet and a club in his hand, pointed out at the remaining ships. "Trader race came in today. There are four o' them, an' they do this every year. First ta finish the route and make a profit wins. We 'elp 'em along by bein' quick about everythin'."

"I see. And the one that has yet to dock?" she asked, pointing out at the approaching ship, which was getting close.

"That one's losin'," the man replied. "Badly. Gonna be here until nightfall, probably. We've got a bettin' pool goin' over who wins, if yer interested?"  
"No, just curious. Thank you for explaining." She lost sight of him as a surge of Vikings chanting something swept between them, headed for the taverns.

'So that is it. A competition based on speed.' Einfari sounded impressed. 'It is more reasonable than I thought it would be.'

"Reasonable?" Heather asked as she made her way out of the crowded part of the docks, heading through the village, intent on meeting Nóttreiði in the fields as planned.

'Competition drives improvement, according to dad,' Einfari explained. 'He says he bets they get faster every year, or learn new ways to do better.'

"Probably," she agreed. If that sort of frenzy was what came of traders focusing on speed and efficiency, she would just as soon they not bother, but maybe they profited more? She had at least gotten something out of it.

She held the book up and looked it over as she walked, turning the rough leather cover in her hands. It was simple, had no markings on the outside, and was filled with a spidery script alongside a generous amount of images-

Some of which, she noticed as she flipped through, were painfully graphic. But helpful; one in particular, depicting a wound half-sewn together, seemed like exactly what she needed, if not on the right subject.

'Does dad need help so much that you have to learn things the Eldurs don't know?' Einfari hissed, so quietly that Heather would have missed it if Einfari wasn't speaking directly to her.

"Oh, no," Heather said forcefully, not liking that idea at all. "He really is healing. I'm not keeping anything from you. This is just for me to learn more, and to have something to do." She could, hypothetically, be keeping a dire diagnosis from Fishlegs to herself for whatever reason, but that wasn't happening.

'Okay, just wondering…' Einfari trailed off. Then, a moment later, she spoke again, far more urgently. 'Wait, turn around.'

Heather immediately complied and saw what had Einfari worried. She had just walked by the storehouse used as a makeshift prison for Astrid, and there were no guards outside. There were _always _guards.

'I'm closing this door,' Einfari growled. 'Heather…'

"Stay there. If she's coming for Togi, you need to protect him." Einfari had just locked herself and Togi inside the hut, hopefully safe from Astrid. Nóttreiði was waiting in an open field; there was no way he would be in any danger. They had no way to find or contact Eldurberg, but he didn't like being in the village without Fishlegs there to speak for him, so he was probably out of danger too.

No, the only one in danger was Heather herself, and she could feel it. She didn't resent Einfari for picking Togi; she would have done the same, because if Astrid was going to go after any one of them, it would be him. But she felt the distinct lack of a Night Fury backing her up all the same.

She took her bow out, and drew an arrow, feeling more comfortable with it than with her ax, and approached the ominously unguarded storehouse. She leaned to the side and pushed one of the doors open, immediately readying herself to fire if someone came leaping out.

"Oy, get out o' the way, lass!" a familiar voice called. Rotison himself, leading a squadron of men bearing heavy crates, was approaching from the direction of the docks. "We gotta get through there!"

"Where is she?" Heather asked nervously. She thought she understood what had happened, and if so then there was no reason to worry, but until she heard it from Rotison and saw the truth for herself, she wasn't going to relax.

"Oh, don't worry yerself," Rotison said condescendingly as his men pushed through the doors, revealing a half-filled storehouse. "I 'ad her moved this mornin' when I saw the trader race approachin'. Needed the room."

"Right. Where is she now?"

"The storage cells on the side o' the cliffs," Rotison explained. "Much smaller, less wasted room, and no less secure. Now, if yer done questionin' my decisions as Chief o' _my _island, get out o' me face."

"Somebody feels cocky with the fleet gone," Heather muttered, leaving Rotison to his storage management. "Those cells aren't bad, as security goes. Actually built to hold people and dragons, I think. So…"

'False alarm?' Einfari offered hopefully.

"It still doesn't feel right," Heather admitted, beginning the walk back to the hut. Einfari had shut the door, and only Einfari would be able to open it again, though undoing a deadbolt was much harder for a dragon than slamming one shut.

'You said it yourself, built to hold humans or dragons,' Einfari said reassuringly.

"Yes…"

She had taken about a dozen steps when it hit her.

"Oh, gods," she said frantically, "dragons! Camicazi loosened all the hinges!"

* * *

The cell was easy to find, one among many though it was. It was the only one with no front grate and two dead guards in front of it, lying on the walkway in a pool of blood. Neither had a weapon on them.

"She could be anywhere on the island by now," Heather said morosely, picking her way past the bodies. She felt extremely helpless; having already sounded the alarm, there was nothing more she could do. It would be impossible to find Astrid by any method other than sheer luck, and it was obvious her luck was terrible.

'Eldurberg and Nóttreiði are staying in the field,' Einfari said reassuringly. 'There are guards around our hut. We are safe. Come back and be safe too.'

"In a moment." She didn't feel like she was in danger, as strange as that was. Astrid might be on a murder mission, looking for her and her people.

But something told her Astrid had other priorities. "She's been out for a while," she said, noticing how cold the corpses were, clearly not fresh. "He said he moved her here in the morning. Think she heard him and his men talking about why?"

'The traders that leave really fast?' Einfari asked, sounding like she understood. 'Oh.'

"Three are already gone," Heather observed, looking out at the docks. The crushingly dense crowd was still there, impervious to being searched in any meaningful way. "And I bet you a few weapons would buy passage to wherever they stop next, no questions asked.' And they couldn't even follow; the only dragons capable of flying out ahead and intercepting the traders were needed either here or on the Isle, or out on the offensive with the fleet.

'She could still be here,' Einfari offered.

"My bet is she's already gone, and out of our reach," Heather admitted morosely. "And it's our fault. Mine, and Camicazi's." They couldn't have known… But it had been their doing. Astrid was free because they had wanted to prevent Rotison from imprisoning their own people.

* * *

The moment Heather saw the fleet on the horizon, out on a long morning flight with Einfari, she knew the attack hadn't succeeded as well as anyone would have liked. There were too few Night Furies in the air, no jubilant Myrkurs racing ahead to trumpet their victory and steal the Vikings' thunder.

Einfari sped up and approached the fleet, flying to meet the single Night Fury and rider who rose from the ship. Maour and Toothless flew up to them and circled around to fly beside them.

"How bad?" Heather asked morosely, remembering her part in the humiliating failure that was Astrid escaping.

"Eldurvatn is dead," Maour said solemnly. "We did some damage, but not nearly enough for the price we paid to get that far."

'No,' Einfari whined. 'That's terrible. But just him?'

'Him, some Vikings, and a few of our ships,' Toothless reported. 'And Myrkurvængur isn't going to be fighting anymore. The Myrkurs don't think he's old enough to handle it.'

'So really, we lost two,' Einfari murmured. 'And we have bad news, too.'

"Nóttleiðtogi?" Maour asked worriedly.

'No, he's fine,' Einfari replied.

"Astrid escaped," Heather continued, feeling like it was her duty to actually break the news. "Rotison had her moved to the cells on the cliff, and I had asked Camicazi to sabotage them back when we first arrived months ago. She's long gone."

Maour scowled aimlessly, not at her, though she felt she would have deserved it. "I can't say I'm surprised," he admitted. "Not with how things have been going recently."

'I am surprised,' Toothless countered. 'She didn't go after anybody?'

"As far as we know, she never even tried," Heather replied. "We never found her, and three ships left port without anyone checking for her, so she had to have gotten away on one of them." Nobody being attacked was the one bright spot in Astrid's escape, and it was only bright because it _wasn't _the worst possible outcome.

"So she's still out there, probably making her way back to Dagur now," Maour concluded sourly. "Bad luck."

"My mistake. I should have stopped Camicazi."

Maour turned in the saddle to stare at her, looking confused. "Months before we even had a prisoner to worry about? Back when Rotison was trying to put our people in those cells?"

"It turned out terribly." She knew it was irrational, but hearing him say it like that made her feel stupid.

"Some things do. Doesn't mean the path to them was bad. Just unlucky."

'Something we should all keep in mind,' Toothless said vehemently. 'Einfari, are you dealing with a guilty rider too?'

'Yes,' Einfari said firmly, ignoring Heather's half-vocalized protest.

'I find that dropping them midair and then letting them fall for a bit helps cheer them up,' Toothless said. "Or at least forces them to think about the present for a moment."

'Good advice.' Einfari looked back at Heather. 'Don't hold on.'

"I-" Heather yelled as Einfari flipped and shook, completely dislodging her in a single movement, and sent her plummeting. She shut her eyes tightly and tried not to scream too loudly, knowing all too well that Einfari was probably falling right beside her, totally in control of the situation.

'This isn't so bad,' Einfari said as they fell, totally at ease. 'I should drop you more often.' With that, something bumped Heather's side, and she blindly grabbed on.

When she opened her eyes, they were gliding again, though she was facing the wrong way in the saddle.

'Feel better?' Einfari asked hopefully.

"I feel like I almost died," Heather complained. "Don't do that!"

'We really _should _practice free-falling,' Einfari said smoothly, totally ignoring Heather's request, 'and you sound less depressed.'

"Utter fear is _not _a solution to my mood!" She slipped around in the saddle to turn and face the right way.

'Then give me a real solution,' Einfari demanded. 'You've been moping around since Astrid broke out. I don't want to see that get worse because the attack didn't go so well. We'll have enough mourning and sadness to go around with the Eldurs losing one of their own.'

"You're right," Heather admitted. "Honestly, I'll feel better once this is all over." When Astrid and Dagur had been dealt with, when she could be sure her actions hadn't doomed them all in the long run.

'I hope so.' Einfari turned them back in the direction of the fleet. 'We should offer our condolences.'

"We should," she agreed absently. She wasn't looking forward to that. Truth be told, she was only looking forward to one thing. Finding out what was going to happen next. The attack had failed, they didn't have Astrid as a potential bargaining chip… Were they just going to sit and wait for Dagur to attack Mahelmetan again?

She didn't like that it felt, more than ever, that they were on the defensive, waiting for the next blow to fall and wondering how bad it would be.

* * *

'I did not expect you,' Nóttleiðtogi admitted. He lurched over, rolling onto his stomach with a speed that _almost _defied the severity of his injuries. The pained whine that forced its way out of him dispelled that illusion far too quickly.

Toothless felt distinctly uncomfortable, standing in a human hut far too small to comfortably contain two adult Night Furies. 'You asked for me.'

'You and Maour, one at a time. I thought he would come first,' Nóttleiðtogi explained. 'He is not listening in?'

'No, he's not. He's busy talking to the Chieftains, discussing our next move. I should be there with him.'

'I will not take much of your time. This is important.'

And just like that, Toothless felt his apprehension increasing. The patriarch of the Nótt family had a way of making him nervous, though he hid it as much as possible. He didn't feel _threatened, _exactly. It was hard to put a claw on why Nóttleiðtogi made him nervous. Maour certainly felt no such thing, and Nóttleiðtogi was Shadow's closest friend. He was, by all accounts, trustworthy and reliable, even when it came to humans, nowadays.

'I have spent a lot of time thinking,' Nóttleiðtogi began, grimacing as he spoke. 'For obvious reasons.'

'And you were thinking about…' Toothless prompted, wanting nothing more than to find out what it was so that he wouldn't have to wait in suspense any longer.

'It does not have a name,' Nóttleiðtogi said, still being maddeningly vague. 'Conditions, maybe. Requirements. What I have, what she had, and who else matches us.'

'I don't follow.'

'I know,' Nóttleiðtogi said with a wry purr. 'Sorry. You know the story of the pack, and more specifically of the female who used a strange power to free us?'

'Yes?' He had heard the highlights from Maour. It was certainly interesting, but he didn't see how it was relevant.

'I have twice now used that same power, whatever it is,' Nóttleiðtogi said bluntly. 'I have spent long days pondering how and why, and come to the conclusion that you and I have reason to speak.'

'_You _have used it?' This was huge! When had that happened?

'Once without realizing it, and then again, where it was pointed out. I must know, what was the worst moment of your life?'

'What?'

'What was your greatest failure?' Nóttleiðtogi pressed. 'A moment in which you strived to do more, only to fail?'

'My greatest failure?' He took the question seriously, and tried to think back. 'It has to be something I _really _failed to do, not just a moment I thought I would fail?'

'A true failure,' Nóttleiðtogi confirmed. 'A loss, a defeat, something you_ did not _achieve. A time when you lost something precious.'

'Something precious…' He tried. He really did. But after an almost embarrassingly long time, he sighed and shook his head. 'I do not know if I _have _failed like that. I was only close to my mother in the nest, and I only feared her never coming back from a raid, which didn't happen. I _almost _lost both her and Maour a few times back in those days, but chance or Maour's clever plans always won out, even if I failed to do anything personally.'

Nóttleiðtogi rumbled thoughtfully. 'What about those times? The moments you personally failed? What was at stake?'

'My mother's life, and Maour's life,' Toothless immediately replied. That was easy; both had even happened at around the same time, within the same two days or so. 'Oh, and my own life.'

'And of course, that last one just wasn't as important,' Nóttleiðtogi mused.

'Well…' He really didn' have an answer for that.

'No,' Nóttleiðtogi continued, waving his tail dismissively, 'that's fine. It fits with what I am thinking.'

'And that is...?' Why had Nóttleiðtogi wanted to talk to him?

'I am thinking that I failed to prepare my son for real life, and then, in my desperation to correct that mistake later, used the ability to force him to learn,' Nóttleiðtogi said thoughtfully. 'Or to force him to obey, in the hopes of making him learn. I also used it to save him from what I saw as my own failure. There is a common thread, though I doubt I truly understand. There are too many missing pieces.'

'And you think I can use this power too?' Toothless asked. It was the only reasonable conclusion he could come up with. 'I never have felt anything that makes me think I can.'

'Neither had I. I didn't even notice _while _I was using it. Heather had to point it out.' Nóttleiðtogi shook his head. 'I _know _nothing. I _suspect _that using it requires great need and the feeling of failure, of regret, of the need to prevent something from happening again. That could explain all occurrences, and why none of the pack aside from me have used it.'

'That seems very specific. Why would it work like that?'

'I don't know, and like I said, I am almost certain that is not _exactly _it,' Nóttleiðtogi stressed, staring into Toothless's eyes. 'But I found it easier to use it when I was told I was doing so, and I suspect you and your mother are more likely to be able to trigger it, whatever the exact trigger is. You especially, because you are a leader.'

'Of what?' Toothless objected. He wasn't a leader; nobody listened to him above all else and did as he said.

'Your generation. Einfari says as much about you, and she does not like to admit that she follows someone else on occasion,' Nóttleiðtogi rumbled. 'It is not a big thing. Just that when you speak, in dangerous situations, others listen. Do not take it to heart. The same could be said of me, and I lead nothing but my family.'

Toothless caught himself just in time, and thought about the fact that he was about to object that Nóttleiðtogi _did _lead, because when difficult decisions needed to be made, the pack always turned to him and his mate for the cynical, careful opinion on the subject. If Nóttleiðtogi did not think he led, but it looked that way to everyone else, who was he to say that the same could not be said of him?

'Just keep it in mind,' Nóttleiðtogi advised. 'Do not count on it, do not rely on it. I cannot, and I _know _I can use it. I am advising you without having all the information, and that means I am probably wrong, missing something key.'

'But since knowing it is possible makes it easier, you thought I should know just in case,' Toothless summarized, finally understanding. 'Thanks, I guess. Why did you need Maour? I am going to tell him.'

'No, do not,' Nóttleiðtogi objected. 'He might accidentally relax and rely on you too much if he thinks you _might _be able to pull in some extra power in a moment of need. That's dangerous, and there is no advantage to him knowing.'

'I don't like keeping secrets,' Toothless objected, though even as he said it he knew he would end up keeping this one, for the good of everyone. Nóttleiðtogi had clearly thought this through.

'But you _will _keep this one?' Nóttleiðtogi pressed.

'I don't like it, but I don't have a choice, not really,' Toothless growled. 'And I don't like that you forced me into this.'

'I had as little choice as you. If there is an advantage to be seized, I have to work toward that, and this is the safest, most efficient way to do that.' He struggled to his paws, a process that took far too long. 'Because _I _am not going to be able to use it before this war is over. I am lucky to be alive at all. It will either not come into play, or someone else will use it. I would have every one of us using it if I could, but I think it will come down to one or two of us, and you are the most likely.'

'Okay.' He didn't like it, but he understood, and he understood that Nóttleiðtogi was willing to bear his resentment if it meant they had a better chance of surviving. Paradoxically, that made him _less _willing to resent Nóttleiðtogi. 'Can you show me?'

'Show you?' Nóttleiðtogi sighed and shook his head. 'I have not been able to do it since that night, though I feel like I should be able to. I don't know enough to even say why.'

'That's discouraging,' he admitted. 'I liked the idea of you being able to go crazy if anything bad happened around here.'

'So did I. And maybe I could, but just cannot do it until then.' Nóttleiðtogi sighed and lay back down. 'Could you tell me how the battle went? I know Maour will, but I want two perspectives from the same location, so that I can tell what is him exaggerating out of guilt.'

'How do you know he's feeling guilty?' Toothless asked.

'We've met regularly for years now. Understanding goes both ways.' Nóttleiðtogi waved his tail, urging Toothless to start talking.

Toothless did, but his mind wasn't on the fight. It felt like Nóttleiðtogi had given him a burden to carry, a secret burden of knowledge and responsibility, but he couldn't fault Nóttleiðtogi for that. If it helped him save people or turn the tide of this war, he'd thank Nóttleiðtogi for it afterward. They needed an edge.

* * *

Dagur stood at the edge of the still slightly scorched docks, watching a small, undercrewed ship sail in.

"Traders are like insects," he said to absolutely nobody, aware that there was nobody around and talking anyway. "Always showing up when you least expect them." He didn't know what this one thought they were doing, but it was definitely a trader's ship, and docking here, on the island he had claimed as his. They wouldn't be leaving alive.

No anchor was let down; a man was heaved overboard, his arms tied behind his back, and the entire crew jumped after him, presumably to save him, given he'd drown.

Dagur was already smiling when Astrid jumped down, landing in the water by the docks and pulling herself up, sopping wet and looking as if she hadn't slept in days.

"You have no idea how annoying it is to not be able to kill anyone for days on end," she griped, wringing out her hair. "Do me a favor and slaughter them."

"I'll let them struggle to get that guy out of the water first," Dagur decided. "Once they think they've got away I'll let some of my men have fun with a chase and destroy training mission."

"That works." She shrugged her shoulders and swayed drunkenly. "Kept that one at swordpoint the whole way here."

"How'd you manage without sleep?" he asked curiously.

"The _first _trader I hitched a ride with had a lot of gold, and when I switched ships at the first port, I bribed one of them to help me. Be sure to get that gold back."

"Perfect." He approached her, slung an arm across her shoulders, and led her away. "So, how was the solo killing spree? I'm jealous."

"One seriously injured," she said grimly. "Lost my ax and stake."

"We'll get you one like mine," he immediately offered. "But you didn't kill any?"

"No," she growled. "But I got something better."  
"Better?" He put off revealing his prize until later; this was more interesting.

"Get me a map and I'll show you."

* * *

Dagur and Savage stood over a wooden table, a map of the area spread across it. Astrid held a charcoal pencil. Gobber lounged in a corner, his head nodding drunkenly. He was awake and presumably paying attention, but only barely.

"Where's Mahelmetan?" she asked.

Savage silently pointed to the island in question.

"And how far can a dragon get from there in a single day's flight?" she continued. "How much faster is one than a boat?"

"I'm not sure," Savage answered. Dagur let him speak; he knew ships better than either of them. It was one of the things that made him useful. "I'd say four or five times faster?"

"Six, then," she concluded. "How far is that on this map? From Mahelmetan."

"What direction?" Savage asked, leaning over the map.

"All of them."

"So a circle…" He picked up his own pencil and painstakingly drew a circle a few inches in radius around the island. "There."

Astrid's smile had grown wide and cruel as Savage drew, and she wasted no time striking out with her own pencil, roughly scratching out one of the two islands inside the circle. "Occupied, nothing but a miserable village. I went there on the way here. So it has to be this one."

Dagur watched as Astrid drew a small circle around an island the map had labeled as dense, lifeless, and incapable of supporting life, only good for restocking fresh water. "That is what?"

"The island our men lost Heather on," Savage said eagerly. "That's the one."

"That," Astrid said slowly, drawing it out, "is their home. Heard from the mouth of your sister, when she didn't know I was there. She let slip that it was a day's flight from Mahelmetan."

A trio of dark smiles broke out around the map; Dagur could feel his mood settling firmly in sadistic anticipation. "_Really_. Well, we _were _going to attack Mahelmetan again, but _that _seems much more fun."

"Do they know ye know?" Savage asked. "Or can we catch them by surprise?"

"They have no idea," Astrid reassured him. "It will be a total surprise."

In the corner, Gobber's helmet slipped, and he slouched a little more against the wall.

"Then that's where we're going," Dagur decided. "Now, let me show you what we managed to accomplish while you were off on your own…"

_**Author's Note:**_** And now that it's already happened, I can reveal that originally, Astrid was going to make it off the island immediately after the fight with Heather and the Notts. But I realized that just wasn't going to happen, and decided to let her spend a little time in jail first. Much easier to escape when her captors have gotten lazy, and their allies have unintentionally sabotaged them in the process. Having the perfect cascade of her escape route **_**causing **_**her captors to unknowingly put her in a sabotaged cage is just the fun way of getting her out.**


	41. Chapter 41

Myrkurheili was bored. The explosive mountain was only interesting if it actually exploded, and it was just spitting out ash and occasional globs of hot rock. The Berserkers down around the base of the mountain were no more interesting; they swarmed like ants, but ants that would kill him if he messed with them. No fun to be had there.

He paced the perimeter of the tiny sea stack just out of sight of the volcano, and sighed. He wished he still had Fishlegs around to mess with. Prodding the large, timid human to embrace his size and clearly violent breeding was fun _and _useful, which was more than he could say for most of the things he did. Fishlegs would be much better off once he lost the reluctance to fight and started throwing his weight around.

He'd even settle for the twins. They weren't quite as entertaining, being far too inured to insanity by now, but he could test their ingenuity by challenging them to a prank war on this desolate sea stack and seeing what they came up with, lacking many of the resources a successful trickster took for granted, like privacy to plan, space, or anything in the environment to use to their advantage.

Barring _that_, he'd at least like to see a fleet of ships sailing out, leaving for some distant destination and releasing him from his sentry duty. He didn't _regret _volunteering, at least he was doing something other than mourning the fallen and retreating, but it did get painfully boring.

He turned and leaned over the edge, looking down at the water. Maybe he could go find an island nearby, mess with the natives, and then come back-

But that would be at least a night's trip, and he might miss the fleet leaving if he took a break for that long. He couldn't return to the pack a failure; Ský would laugh and make fun of him for weeks, and he would deserve it for not being able to sit still and do what he promised.

Myrkurheili dropped off the sea stack, flapped once to arrest his fall, and set out toward the ash cloud that obscured the mountain. If he was going to be bored, he was going to be bored while flying above the mountain and looking down on the enemy. They'd never see him; they weren't expecting to see a Night Fury, and even in the less than perfect conditions presented by the ever-present ash and glowing volcanic peak, he was almost invisible. Maybe he would see something interesting.

* * *

Gobber's stump itched; his arm jerked uncontrollably. Ash again. Stuck between stump and prosthetic.

He sighed, stopping his climb on a convenient ledge, and began unwinding the cords that held the prosthetic cup to his stump. Nothing for it but to clean it out. He had nothing but time, and only one life, which he was already risking in this ascent.

And for what? A view of the glowing peak? True isolation, a place where he could be sure none had followed? Not even Dagur had come up here, though more because he didn't have a whole day to spend climbing up, to say nothing of the descent. Nobody would be around.

Maybe he was just itching to burn time, he mused as he briskly wiped off his calloused stump and the inside of the wooden bowl of his prosthetic. He felt exceedingly helpless; there was no way to warn Maour of the impending strike or its target, and nothing to do but help Astrid and wait, neither of which was appealing.

Gobber would like nothing better than to bury a blade in her back. But to do it now wouldn't help much. He had to do it when her death would disrupt or destroy the Berserkers. He _knew _that, but it was tempting nonetheless.

He laughed to himself. Her tunnel vision was useful; she didn't even notice the murderous intent lying behind his apparently drunken exterior. Nobody did, but she really _should_. His control was fraying, a jury-rigged rope holding up more and more weight, visibly parting a little more with every day he was forced to help her and act as her loyal servant.

He was climbing for the challenge, just a rock pick and a canteen, something that made him feel strong and pushed his limits. The summit was close; it was hard to tell how long he had been climbing, but progress was easy to track. A strange, fell light illuminated the clouds above-

A dark shape flitted in front of said clouds, there for only an instant. He squinted, willing it to return, but it did not.

Possibly just wishful thinking, a drift of ash confusing him. Or maybe it was a dragon, but a feral one uninvolved in all of this. Night Furies were the only ones Maour interacted with, which wasn't really that odd. Other kinds of dragons were scarce, more and more so with every year, as they presumably spread out and found less dangerous places to live.

Only the Night Furies were waging a war and doggedly forcing the world to recognize them. Was there irony in that, the most unknown species becoming the most well-known in their efforts to survive? He didn't know and didn't really care.

Gobber continued his climb, ignoring the futility of what he was doing in the grand scheme of things. He was burning time, waiting for the moment he had anticipated for months.

When he eventually reached the peak, he was not disappointed, but only because his expectations had not been high. A simple rock lip, jagged and uneven, with a steep drop on the other side, an uneven oval with the depths of Muspelheim lying far below.

He found a place to sit, a chunk of black rock jutting out of the steep slope, and claimed it as his own, brushing off the thickly-caked ash to hopefully make his perch less slippery. He would sit there for a while before descending; his body ached from the long climb.

The volcano rumbled threateningly under him; he ignored it. Either it would erupt and wipe him out of existence, or it would do nothing. He didn't feel like worrying about things he couldn't change or prepare for. It hadn't erupted so far, and that was good enough for him.

* * *

Myrkurheili landed silently on the far side of the peak, perching precariously on the lip of the opening, staring at the odd-looking human who had scaled the mountain and was now sitting with its back to him.

There was no danger here. He was fairly certain the odd false limbs this one bore matched the description he had been given of their spy, the one who wanted to help them. And if not, he could easily knock it halfway down the mountain with a single swipe or small blast of fire, and it would die from seemingly natural causes, leaving no trace of his existence.

So long as it didn't somehow kill him, there was no danger in approaching and seeing what happened. Given it wasn't even armed, aside from a tiny false claw he wasn't worried about, he felt safe.

He carefully made his way around the lip, placing each paw with a light touch in case the stone was loose. Rockslides had caught him unaware before, and this was a particularly deadly position to be caught out in.

Once he was close enough, he growled. The human's back stiffened, and it slowly turned to look at him.

"Guess ye weren't just a bit o' ash in the wind," the human said to itself. "I 'ope ye understand when I say I'm a friend, despite the look o' things."

Myrkurheili nodded, glad he had long since learned to understand humans when they spoke. He _had _known, and it wasn't like he was going to put himself in a vulnerable position either way, so there was no harm in admitting as much and allowing the human some peace of mind.

"Great," the human said vehemently. "Gods, this is great. Ye gotta tell Maour, they know where ye all live. Or they think they do. Somewhere within a day's flight o' where they attacked last, righ'?" He made as if to point, gesturing his false paw, but was stymied by the featureless smog all around the mountain.

Myrkurheili snarled, his body tensing. That was bad; even lacking a direction, it was clear from what the human had said that the secret was out.

"Oy," the human protested, "it wasn' me, I don' even know for sure tha' they're right! Astrid figured it out. She _is _righ' about where ye all are?"

Myrkurheili huffed angrily. He wished he could speak directly, or communicate in some way. Nods and growls just weren't enough, but they were all he had. He tilted his head and flicked his tail, not directly confirming the human's words just in case this was a trick to get confirmation.

The human probably didn't understand the gesture that meant 'go on', but he did anyway. "Ye will tell Maour, righ'? They're headin' there as soon as the fleet's ready, a few days at most. Wish I 'ad somethin' to write a note wit'."

Myrkutheili shrugged his wings impatiently. Here was an excuse to fly home right now; he was already itching to get away from this ash-covered island. It made no sense to wait for the fleet to set out when he already knew when and where they were going.

"Ye'll tell 'im?" the human asked again.

He nodded, exaggerating the motion just to make sure he was understood. He'd tell Maour, and everyone else. This was important.

"Good luck to ye, then. I'm gonna stick around, not that I've got a choice," the human grumbled.

'Have fun in this miserable cloud,' Myrkurheili quipped, leaping up and flying upward as directly as he could, powering through the stifling ash cloud to emerge above it, gasping in clean air.

He oriented himself with the setting sun and turned to face homeward. It was time to see just how quickly he could get back. Lives might depend on it.

* * *

Heather sat on the roof of her hut, watching the sun set. She felt good, content in a way she felt far too seldomly. Things weren't perfect, and there was trouble on the horizon, but for the moment she was happy.

Some of that definitely had to do with the lack of pain from her back. As it turned out, Night Fury saliva worked wonders on burns, and she had recovered quickly. If only it worked so well on other injuries. There was a limit to how much could be helped when the damage was serious.

Another reason for her happiness was in the hut underneath her. Einfari had flown out to trade places with Skarpur so that she could visit Togi, and right now the two of them were reunited. Heather hadn't been told to leave but had decided they deserved some privacy anyway.

She doubted they could do anything that demanded privacy anyway, given how weak Togi's wounds made him, but that was as far as she was willing to speculate.

So there was that. Einfari was gone, off taking care of her sister, and if Heather wanted she could watch the two play, but she didn't feel like it.

And what of Nóttreiði?

She looked back at the black mass covering the other side of the roof, his back to her. "What are you looking at?"

'Nothing,' he said quietly. 'The empty sky,' he elaborated after a moment.

"Instead of the setting sun?" She thought she had an idea of how he would react to that, so she was careful to sound casual, not argumentative. So long as she didn't annoy him, he often forgot to be awkward around her, and it was better for both of them when he wasn't awkward.

'I would rather not ruin my eyes,' he said.

"Makes sense," Heather said, though it didn't. Surely Nóttreiði could look in the sun's general direction if he actually wanted to. As far as she knew, it wouldn't even temporarily ruin his night vision, like looking at a light would for humans. "Do you see anything interesting?"

'The lights of human fires at the bottom of my vision, like embers,' he said slowly. 'Empty, dark expanses of sky, lit by countless stars just becoming visible as the dark descends…'

Heather smiled. That was almost poetic, though she didn't think Nóttreiði would take her saying so as a compliment.

'... Two angry faces scowling at me as they approach,' Nóttreiði continued in the same monotone. 'The clouds-'

"What?" Heather asked a beat too late, her mind only then catching the disparity. She turned around to see Maour and Toothless approaching rapidly.

'That,' Nóttreiði grunted, standing and shaking himself. 'What is it?' he called out.

Maour's face, Heather saw as they drew closer, was grave. "Trouble."

* * *

Heather perched atop a bar stool behind the counter, leaning against the bar and staring at the tense assembly in front of her.

"I'll take a mead with goat blood," Camicazi announced, walking over to the other side of the bar. "Extra fresh. Kill it in front of me."

"I _think _that's not an actual drink," Heather retorted. "And I'm no barmaid. Get it yourself."

"Anything can be a drink if I want it to be," Camicazi retorted, hopping up onto one of the stools. "But I was just joking about how you're on that side of the counter."

"I wanted a good view of the whole room," Heather said shortly. Einfari was watching through her eyes, and the rest of the pack was gathered around her, save for those on Mahelmetan or out on patrol. Everyone who could possibly be present was, in some form or another. Skarpur slunk restlessly through the space under the counter on Heather's side, hidden from sight but still able to hear, and if she were to poke her head out around the edge, to see. She hadn't stopped moving once in the time she had been in the tavern.

"Whatever. So, what's the big problem?" Camicazi asked.

"Guess," Heather said bitterly. "What's the worst possible thing we could have just learned?"

"Easy," Camicazi said. "Dagur and Astrid are Odin's chosen warriors, and all who stand in their way are struck from existence."

"Excluding acts of the gods." Heather watched as Mogadon flung the door open, stomped into the room, and claimed a whole table for himself.

"They've learned how to raise the dead and have an undead army," Camicazi suggested. "They've got a pet Skrill, or some other crazy dragon. A Night Fury army of their own. They found your island, wherever it is. They-"

"One of those is right," Heather interrupted. She could see that Maour, who had claimed a table in the middle of the room for himself and Toothless, was about to speak. "Shut up and listen."

"Who stabbed you in the backside?" Camicazi muttered, spinning around on her stool to face the rest of the room.

'Remind me,' Einfari requested, 'does she know about that?'

"Me _actually _being stabbed there?" Heather murmured. "I'm not sure. Ruffnut might have told her about it on the way up here."

'I would assume she knows,' Skarpur suggested. 'Do you know anything about her to use in retaliation?'

"Not really," Heather admitted.

"We have a big problem," Maour announced, standing on the table. Heather assumed he was doing so for dramatic effect, as the tavern was mostly empty, and everyone was paying attention already, even the stocky Rockbreaker who was acting as their temporary chief, though he was only watching out of the corner of his eye.

"It'd help if ye explained," Mogadon drawled. "Or are ye waitin' for us to figure it out for ye, like ye did wit' the attack?"

Heather distinctly heard Skarpur growling from under the counter. Camicazi looked around, confused, and stared at Toothless, seeing no other source for the noise.

"The Berserkers know where the Isle of Night is and are coming straight for us," Maour said, ignoring Mogadon. His news was more than enough to take everyone's minds off the resentment Mogadon had raised, anyway. "We don't know how, but we do have it straight from a trusted informant, passed on to a scout we left behind. They're coming back as soon as they can sail as a fleet."

"Eh, big deal," Bertha grunted. "We can fight them there, if ye'll tell us where it is. We _can _get there in time, righ'?"

"Aye," Aldir agreed, "if they know then everyone will soon, so there's no harm in sharing."

Maour shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe," he said noncommittally, looking to Heather. "What does the pack think?"

'Tell him we are debating it,' Einfari supplied. 'Thoroughly.'

"I'll let you know once the pack decides on something," Heather offered.

'And I will speak for my family, and approve or not,' Skarpur hissed, pawing at Heather's foot to ensure she had her attention.

"When the _whole _pack has decided," Heather clarified.

'We went to such lengths to hide it,' Toothless groaned. 'How did they find out?'

"Until then, I'll not be saying anything more on the subject," Maour concluded. "But we have a lot to decide here and now. Assume we can get there in time to mount a defense, and assume that you'll have most of my people fighting."

"Most?" Mogadon grunted. "Boy, now's not the time to hold back."

"We are fighting this war to protect our future," Maour shot back, "and that future will not be left defenseless. A few Furies will be occupied guarding those who cannot protect themselves, just in case. If Astrid or Dagur reach our home, they will raze it to the ground and slaughter every living thing there. That will _not _include our young and frail."

"Sounds like you should all just fly away," Camicazi volunteered thoughtfully. "They can't kill what they can't find."

"There are complications," Maour said bluntly. "If anyone could lend a ship and the bare minimum of a crew, that would make things easier."

"We've got injured who can't fight but can sail, we can offer that," Bertha immediately volunteered. "I like the idea of Dagur showing up only to find nothing worth killing. We're stealing his prey out from under him."

"Even if there is nobody worth killing there, he will still ruin the place," Heather interrupted, purposely avoiding mentioning that it was an island at all. Until they got the okay, she wasn't going to give _anything _away, even by accident.

"Heather is right, we need to defend the place, too, and we need to destroy their fleet once and for all," Maour said firmly. "Strike in the water, away from any land at all, fleet against fleet."

"Wit' better tactics than last time," Aldir added forcefully. "We didn't do so well then, and we won't now if we don't change anything."

'I have some ideas, and Togi gave me more earlier,' Skarpur volunteered. 'Should I share them now or later?'

"We'll get to that in a moment," Maour said loudly, answering her without so much as hinting at her presence, something Heather was sure Skarpur appreciated. "First, we need to talk logistics. How many ships do we have available?"

"Enough," Mogadon said. "But unless ye wanna tell us where ta sail 'em, they won' be any use."

"Directly into the attacking armada," Maour retorted. "As quickly as possible, to engage them far from their target."

"Bad idea," Bertha interrupted. "It'd be better to find where they're anchoring along the way, wait until nightfall, and ambush them."

"Because an ambush worked so well last time," Mogadon retorted. "We should just let 'em land on this island, and then fight there. We can trap em on their ships when they beach, 'ave dragons blast 'em apart, and then clean up wha' remains."

"That would be great, but only if they weren't trying to raze our island to the ground," Maour said firmly. "Astrid or Dagur setting foot on the island means we've already lost."

"Sounds ta me like ye lost the moment they discovered where ye live, then," Mogadon said smugly. "So get over it and let the rest o' us show you how ta win."

'Heather, they've almost reached a decision back at home,' Einfari reported, startling Heather. 'I think they will agree to let it happen. The secret is already well and truly out, and Fishlegs was very convincing in saying that we cannot hide it again now that an entire armada knows.'

"We could kill them all," Heather mused darkly. "That would fix it." Assuming that however they had originally obtained the knowledge could not be redone… How had Astrid, or a spy, or _any_ human managed it? The Isle had scouts, they had been careful. The Vikings closest to them, most likely to notice any unintended hints, still didn't know.

'The Myrkurs said as much, but he says we would have to raze their island to be sure, and we both cannot and do not want to do that,' Einfari replied. 'They are voting now... '

Heather closed her eyes, momentarily ignoring the continued discussion over the plan, and saw what Einfari could see.

The central cavern, of course, but from a different perspective than normal, right on the edge of the Nótt ledge. She was acting as the spokesdragon for the family, because neither Skarpur nor Togi was home at present.

'We don't like it,' Svarturskuggi was saying, addressing the entire cavern, 'and we don't want it, but our enemies know. There can be no further harm done by telling the rest. If we do not have their help defending this place, we will lose it anyway. My family votes yes, we let them know.'

'We worked so hard to keep ourselves hidden, and now it all comes to nothing,' Myrkurhryðjuverk said solemnly. 'This is not fun, or entertaining, or any of that… But we have no choice, and when it comes to secrets and strategy, we are willing to take risks. So long as the Nótts have nothing more to say, we agree to let it be known.'

"Same here," Fishlegs called out. "I mean, I speak for us. We don't like it, but we really don't have a choice either."

'Let me talk to my mother for a moment,' Einfari requested. 'Heather?'

"On it," Heather murmured, returning to her own senses. Nothing had changed except that Skarpur was staring at her intently.

'Well?' Skarpur asked.

"It's basically up to you," Heather explained. "And Togi, but he's not here." She still wasn't entirely sure how they shared power between them; was this something Skarpur could commit to on her own, or would she have to consult him first?

'He has already told me to decide for myself,' Skarpur said, answering Heather's unspoken question, 'so my choice is also his, and either way we will be in agreement. I have to admit, I do not like the idea at all.'

"Neither do I, or really any of us," Heather agreed. Not only was she unhappy with giving away the secret at all, she didn't want the likes of Mogadon knowing it, ally or not. For that matter, the quiet, subdued stand-in Chieftain for the Rockbreakers was sitting in a dark corner, watching but not offering his opinion. She didn't like the idea of his tribe knowing either. One of their number had already betrayed a Fury once, even if Sigvard had supposedly been acting alone. Others might share his priorities and disregard for their dragon allies.

'But it is not as if we will be keeping the secret either way,' Toothless said, chiming in with his own opinion. He seemed bored of the repetitive argument occurring between Maour and the Chieftains. 'It is either tell them now and keep their trust and aid, or lose both and let them find out later in one way or another.'

'And put like that,' Skarpur sighed, digging her claws into the polished wood that made up the side of the bar counter, 'there should be no debate. One path is obvious. Let them know. We will pay the price of that knowledge whether we give it or not, so we might as well give it.'

"That's a yes?" Heather asked.

'It is,' Skarpur confirmed. 'Maour, if you would bring them around to discussing tactics, I have something to contribute.'

"Got it," Maour confirmed. "Heather," he said loudly, speaking over a side argument between Bertha and Aldir, "has there been a decision?"

"Yes," Heather replied, ignoring the many eyes turned her way," there has. We can reveal the location, bring them near, and prepare to fend off the enemy from there."

"Or we could intercept 'em on the way and ambush in the dark," Bertha said again. "I'm liking that idea."

"That is one thing," Maour agreed. "We also need to decide how we will be fighting them, and when, night or day."

"It would be prudent to decide exactly what role your people will play in this fight now, as well," Aldir added.

"Exactly what I was thinking," Maour agreed. "And it just so happens we have one of the Isle's most skilled tacticians here with us."

"You're not all of that," Mogadon said dismissively.

"I wasn't talking about me," Maour retorted. "Skarpur?"

Skarpur stood, rising above the bar counter and startling Camicazi, who fell back off of her stool in surprise. She gave the assembled Chieftains a decidedly unimpressed stare. 'Heather, if you would?'

"Yes, I can translate," Heather agreed.

'Will there be any stupid challenges to my intelligence or the truth that I am being fairly represented,' Skarpur asked coldly, 'or can we get right to what matters?' Heather did her best to convey the tone as well as the words.

"Always something new and strange," Mogadon grumbled. "I don' care whether it's the girl or the dragon talking, just tell us what you've got." The other Chieftains seemed to share his sentiment, echoing his decision in their own words so as to not appear weak.

'Good,' Skarpur purred. 'Now, I have been at one fight, and had others tell me all about the other. There are weaknesses and strengths to both of our peoples, and there are ways to combine them better than we have.'

As Heather continued, outlining Skarpur's analysis of the war so far, she could see the skepticism in Mogadon's eyes slowly fading, replaced by discomfort.

She understood why he was uncomfortable, and smiled grimly as Skarpur laid bare every tactical failing of the Viking fleets. They were going to adapt for this fight, and if Mogadon saw hints that the Furies were more than capable of outthinking him in a fair fight, well, that was a side benefit.

* * *

'Is it strange that I feel hope and horrible dread at the same time?' Toothless asked, gliding over the allied fleet. 'This is so wrong, but…'

"It only feels wrong because we've never done it before," Maour said, feeling very much the same. It was a strange thing, to be directing humans _to _the Isle, not diverting or accosting them to prevent exactly that. But he had to be hopeful, because if not then what was the point? "Maybe, someday soon, we won't have to worry if we see ships while out on patrol."

'Soon?' Toothless barked incredulously. 'Even if we win this, these are only a few groups of humans, and we do not even _really _trust them!'

"What can I say," Maour said ruefully, "I'm choosing to be an optimist." He might even be truly optimistic if this big leap of trust had come naturally instead of being forced by something he still did not fully understand.

"How do you think they found out?" he asked. "The Berserkers, I mean."

'I have no clue,' Toothless growled. 'I know the pack has been keeping up with the patrols as much as they could with so many of us gone, but maybe a scout ship slipped through or just caught sight of someone obviously patrolling and then took a wild guess?'

"Yeah, we did run them off from here before, when we freed Heather," Maour admitted. _That _was probably the reason the Berserkers were confident in their knowledge. Any suspicion cast on this island would only be confirmed by the very encounter that had started it all.

'If only we had just run them off,' Toothless grumbled mournfully.

"We would not have saved Heather if we did that," Maour objected. "We did the right thing."

'I meant after she got off the ship,' Toothless clarified. 'We could have made it look like a wild dragon had abducted and eaten her. I could have jumped out-'

"Revealing a Night Fury on the Isle, which would inevitably get back to Dagur and then probably Astrid," Maour countered.

'Or we could have just killed the Berserkers and sank the ship,' Toothless suggested darkly, looking out at the silhouette of the island in the distance. 'That would have saved Heather and not brought us to this. Eldurvatn would still be alive.'

"Yeah, he would," Maour sighed. "But that just wasn't how we did things." Now, though? If he could go back, he'd do that in a heartbeat. He wouldn't revel in the killing, that was for sure, but it would be more than justified to avert what was happening now.

But there was no going back, and he had to focus on seeing the pack through this fight, being one of the people everyone seemed to rely on for bridging the gap between human and dragon.

He looked down, spotting a dark bulk and a slim woman next to it standing at the prow of the lead Bog Burglar vessel. One of many ships.

'We are close,' Toothless huffed. 'Should we tell the leaders what they are approaching? We have kept them in the dark so far.'

"No point in spreading the news any faster than inevitable," Maour reminded him. They had waited until the allied fleet was out of sight of Mahelmetan to even point them in the right direction, thus preventing anyone not on the fleet from knowing anything. The word would spread regardless, but it would spread slower if the initial group of those who knew was curated as much as possible.

'But now we are almost there,' Toothless growled. 'Let's go tell Mogadon that he will lose his limbs, his pride, and then his life if he raises a finger toward our siblings.'

"We'll do it diplomatically, and not let him even see them if possible… But yes, let's do that," Maour conceded, spotting Toothless's protective instincts in play, and having no great fondness for the Chieftain who would bear the wrath of him acting on them.

* * *

"It's quite a wild place," Aldir observed, greeting Maour and Toothless with a respectful nod, turning away from the prow of the ship. "I see you are making the rounds. What do I need to know?"

'That while I do not dislike you as much as I do Mogadon, you will die if you take advantage of this knowledge,' Toothless snarled.

Aldir, to his credit, raised an eyebrow at the obviously hostile noise, and spread his hands, revealing no weapons. "I do not think I did anything to anger you," he said, addressing Toothless.

"Consider it a preemptive warning," Maour said unrepentantly. "We're not happy about having to do this."

"I would be lying if I said I was bothered by it," Aldir admitted. "It makes me feel that I am dealing with a tribe, not a group of dragons that might one day disappear on the horizon. You are… Tied to the land, I suppose is the best way to put it."

"We really like the land in question," Maour corrected. "If this goes South, we're not going to all die trying to keep it. But running isn't the answer to the problem facing us now, so we'll fight first."

"They would probably find you again, wherever you went," Aldir agreed. " Is there anything I or my people need to know about the island itself? If we stick to the plan there will be no fighting or even landing there, but in case the plan does not apply…"

"There's no wild game," Maour said shortly. "A few streams, a _lot _of greenery, but nothing to hunt and eat. The forest is dense and hard to navigate, and the mountain a warren of dangerous caves that might house dragons who will kill on sight, no questions asked and no regrets felt afterward. There is absolutely no reason for you to go anywhere near the caves." In truth, he was bluffing about the homicidal Furies; there would be nobody on the island by the time the fighting started, which was a whole other issue he and Toothless would soon be dealing with.

"Duly noted," Aldir responded. "With the aid of dragons and the tactics your friends have developed, there should be no need to land. Do you have anything else to bring to the fight? Any last-minute dragons kept in reserve, surprises held back for the moment of greatest need?"

'Why would he ask that?' Toothless murmured, sounding surprised.

"No," Maour said, shrugging his shoulders. "It's hard enough to even find dragons these days, and the closest ones I know of are too far and unlikely to want to help." He and Toothless had made a point of checking out all of the islands within a week's flight of the Isle, and none held more than a solitary pair or family of common types likely to be cut down in an instant anyway.

"Too bad," Aldir said, shaking his head. "Siege weaponry? Stolen Berserker ships?"

"We _do _have a couple of Berserker ships, actually," Maour recalled. They had been taken while he and the other riders were busy bringing the tribes to Mahelmetan. "But nobody to crew them, and nothing special on them."

"Worthless, then," Aldir sighed. "I cannot help thinking we are sailing to our doom, and while I do not fear death, I do rather dislike defeat." He smiled wryly.

'We are not _that _outnumbered,' Toothless grumbled. 'But siege weapons… Maour, can you make something?'

"Make something?" Maour repeated, thinking about it. "Not with how little time we have." Designing anything that actually worked was a process of testing and refining as much as actually creating in the first place, and while he might be able to make something in time for the battle, it almost certainly wouldn't work first try, and there would be no second try that mattered.

'Use something we already know how to make?' Toothless offered.

"The only big weapon I even know would be worthless for this," Maour admitted. "You know the one. It's great against dragons, but not so much against ships."

"If I might interrupt," Aldir said tactfully, "you are talking about siege weapons that work on dragons?"

"Yes, but that won't help here, and I don't have time to modify the design." It took him a long moment to figure out why Aldir seemed no less interested. "And I don't plan on making one afterward, either."

"I doubt payment is your objection," Aldir said, crossing his arms. "You have agreed that my island is beset by beasts that cannot be reasoned with. Ones you have a personal issue with. Why not?"

"I…" He paused, trying to think of a reason that was not invalidated by Aldir's specific circumstance. "Whatever I gave you would be copied, turned against other dragons in other places."

"Then make it so that it only works on Skrill," Aldir retorted. "If it is used against them elsewhere, so much the better."

'You could make it not so dangerous,' Toothless added pensively, as unsure as Maour was. 'But that defeats the purpose. Could you make it only work on them? I do not see a way.'

"Assuming I could do that," Maour said, "I would not make it a killing weapon. It would bring them out of the sky, no more." He had no idea how he would modify a bola launcher to only work on Skrill, but it didn't seem like an impossible task, just one he couldn't immediately solve.

"That is enough," Aldir said firmly. "More than enough. We can discuss the specifics if we both survive this fight."

"Sure," Maour agreed. He still wasn't sure he would do it, or what he wanted in return, but there was no harm in keeping the option open for later. He couldn't afford to be distracted by this right now, anyway. There were more immediate, important things afoot.

* * *

Maour nervously adjusted the leather sling across Cloey's chest, settling the straps in for what he knew had to be the tenth time. It didn't help that Cloey was just as nervous, shifting her weight every few moments, leaning from one paw to the next worriedly.

'Calm down, mom,' Von requested. 'Maour and Toothless are going to be watching him the whole way.' She ran her tail across her little brother's stubby wings and back, eliciting a grumbling squeak of content.

'That does not make me feel any better,' Cloey growled.

"No offense taken," Maour quipped, running his hands down inside the recently excavated sling. He had checked it for weaknesses already, over and over again in his need to be absolutely sure, but he was taking no chances.

'I meant none, you know I cannot help it,' Cloey huffed. 'Skuggi?' she asked, speaking to the air.

A moment later, she relaxed slightly, though it was barely visible underneath all of the tension she still carried like a weight on her back. 'He says the ship is ready for us,' she explained. 'And that there are no humans in sight.'

"They left it there this time," Maour confirmed. The ship would be minimally crewed when the time came to do this for real, but he was trying to ease Cloey into things, and it would soothe her nerves if there were no humans around in the practice run.

'Well,' Von said nervously, lightly resting a paw on Vern's back, 'I think we are ready. Should I go first, or you?'

'It is a short, simple flight, and the weather is perfect,' Cloey growled, either talking to herself or Skuggi. 'I will go first. Kappi?'

'Okay, up you go, Fora,' Toothless hummed, lifting his little sister by the loose scruff of her neck. He easily lowered her into the sling, tail first.

"Now the straps," Maour reminded him. He could do it himself, but the entire setup was designed to be doable without human participation.

'Easy,' Toothless said confidently, tugging at the two diagonal straps across the front of the sling. Fora chirped in surprise as the leather pouch closed mostly over her head, leaving a hole for breathing and not much else.

'I really do not like this,' Cloey barked, walking away. 'It feels stable, but still!'

"I know, none of us do," Maour said, doing his best to keep up with her as she all but ran to the exit of the cave.

They emerged into the dull, grey light of a cloudy afternoon, and Cloey immediately craned her neck to look down at the sling. 'Just relax,' she hummed, sounding anything but relaxed herself.

"Everything is still good," Maour confirmed, tugging on the straps one more time before backing away. "The sooner you fly to the ship, the sooner we can get her out-"

That was all Cloey needed to hear; she was up in the air so fast the displaced air from her wings knocked Maour back. He took it in stride, quickly returning to Toothless and taking to the air.

'All is well,' Toothless called up to Cloey, gliding in to fly directly under her. 'Maour, check on Fora?'

Maour looked up, standing in the saddle to reach, and pat the bottom of the satchel. A paw or wing bulged out and tried to hit him back. "Lively," he reported.

Cloey's response was to turn and fly for the single ship drifting off the shore of the island, left to serve as a practice target.

Maour was feeling some of the same anxiety affecting Cloey and, to a lesser extent Toothless, though his was based more in learned worry than instincts. Every moment the hatchlings spent in the air, by necessity exposed to the biting wind, was a risk. A short flight was far less of a risk, which was one of the reasons they would be using a boat when the time came to evacuate for real, but it was not _safe. _There were no safe paths out of this.

Cloey made it to the deck of the abandoned Bog Burglar ship without incident, touching down gently to avoid bouncing her daughter too roughly. She wasted no time in yanking at the straps holding Fora's sling shut, leaning over to roll her daughter out onto the deck and immediately drop on top of her, holding her close to check her temperature.

'She is not very cold,' Cloey said with a loud, heartfelt sigh of relief. 'It worked.'

'But she _was _a little cold?' Toothless asked worriedly.

'It is worse when she spends time crawling on my back,' Cloey explained. 'If I could be sure she would never grow any colder than that, I would not fear using this to take her anywhere.'

"She seems to like exploring," Maour observed. He could see a roving paw sticking out from Cloey's close embrace, scratching curiously at the deck. Fora mewled, annoyed at being restrained.

'It works,' Toothless grunted. 'So, no more worrying?'

'Next time, there will be others from outside the family, and _humans_,' Cloey growled. 'Prove to me that those problems have been handled, and I might be able to sleep tomorrow.'

"Follow me, then," Maour offered, dropping down to the deck. "When you land here for real, there will be humans, but only enough to crew the ship, and they all know to stay below deck whenever possible."

Cloey stood, gesturing for Toothless to take over in watching Fora, and followed Maour down the narrow deck of the ship, toward the squat cabin at the back.

"They'll sleep in here," he continued, slapping the side of the cabin. "If needed. It should not go that long, but…"

'Prepare for everything, as Skarpur likes to say,' Cloey agreed. 'Yes. Assuming all goes wrong, how does this work?'

"Four young, three families, and we need to keep them apart," Maour summarized. "Not to mention the ship being crewed. The humans get the front of the deck and the cabin. The Nótts have agreed to share those spaces, and sleep on top of the cabin." Joy was the only young one old enough to be around humans or other dragons without developing an instinctive desire to trust them, and whichever Nótt was selected to care for her would keep an eye on the crew.

'The Eldurs?' Cloey pressed, looking at the tiny patch of deck between the back of the cabin and the rear rail of the ship.

"They have agreed to be below deck,' Maour replied. The stipulation was that the hatch had to be open at all times, but that wouldn't be an issue. "Our family gets this spot."

'Two hatchlings and two of us here at all times?' Cloey huffed, pacing the small space. 'And these railings are no good. Fora or Vern might slip right off the ship!'

"I have some planks I can put up, and the idea is that one of you will lay against the rails," Maour said. "It's going to be a tight fit, I know, and out in the open, but if something terrible happens to this ship, you will have plenty of warning." If they were allocating space based solely on need, he would have the Svarturs below deck, but the Eldurs were more uptight, as impossible as that seemed, about exposing Vartha to _anyone _outside the family. Plus, and he could think of this without guilt because the Eldurs had been told and didn't consider it an issue, it was slightly harder to get out from below deck if something happened and the ship needed to be evacuated. He preferred his family take the spot behind the cabin, all things considered.

"And the Myrkur?" Cloey concluded.

"If he comes to the ship he'll sleep with the Nótts, but last I heard he was going to be participating in the fight without being directly involved." He could thank Myrkurheili and Fishlegs for that; they had come up with a plan for the youngest Myrkur that didn't involve him being sent away without contributing at all. Every available dragon, even if not directly fighting, was needed.

'Where are we going?' Cloey pressed. 'Skuggi does not remember, and wants me to ask,' she continued, hopping up onto the cabin roof and surveying the ship from her new perch.

"Straight to Bog Burglar territory, a safe island they've set up for waiting out search parties." He owed Camicazi for that; she had suggested it and then argued her mother into agreeing. It was several months sailing to get there, but having anywhere at all to go was an improvement.

'When are we leaving?' She leaped forward, out of sight, so Maour followed around to the front of the cabin, to find her pawing at the hatch leading down below deck. Toothless and Fora were playing with a pile of rope further down the deck.

He opened it for her as he spoke. "The moment we get a count of their ships." They knew exactly how many ships the Berserkers had thanks to a bored Myrkurheili repeatedly counting them while scouting out their island, and wouldn't be sending a vulnerable ship into a second front approaching from another angle if they could account for all of the ships from the start.

'Who is going?' Cloey stuck her head down into the hold, flinging her tail straight out behind her to counterbalance as she leaned in.

'Fora and Vern, you and Von. Joy and a Nótt, though I don't know which. Eldurmælikvarða and her mother."

'Skuggi says last he heard, Togi planned on sending Nóttreiði with Nótthljóður,' Cloey rumbled. She gave up on just looking and dropped down into the hold. 'I think that is wise.'

"It definitely is," Maour decided after giving it a moment's thought. No reason to risk a possibly unstable dragon in a fight when he was needed elsewhere, to do something he was probably much better at anyway.

'This is not a good cave,' Cloey declared, clambering up out of the hatch, apparently done with her inspection. 'I do not envy Ský. But it all seems good. No traps, no weapons, no dangers for a hatchling so long as he or she does not fall off the ship entirely, or get into trouble with the humans.'

"Glad to hear you approve," Maour said. He was even more glad to hear the instinct-fueled anxiety fading from her voice. It was not gone, but he hadn't expected any amount of planning or security precautions to accomplish that.

'So much so that I have changed the plan,' Cloey announced. 'Von and Skuggi will take Fora and Vern. I am a more skilled fighter than Skuggi, and now I do not feel I _have _to be here myself to keep them safe.'

'Really?' Toothless interrupted, looking up from Fora, who had managed to ascend the pile of now tangled rope and was busy digging her tiny claws into it as thoroughly as she could. 'I mean I did not think you would be able to do that.'

'If there is any time to fight my instincts it is now, and I do not even have to,' she declared. 'This is not perfect, but it is good enough that I trust my mate and daughter to take care of the rest. I will fight.'

"Welcome to the Night Fury armada then, Mom," Maour quipped. "You know the plan, right?"

'You might have to get me up to speed on the details, but yes,' Cloey hummed. 'Later. Let's get Fora home and bring Von out.'

'And then Fishlegs can bring the Eldurs, and then the Nótts, and then the Bog Burglars take the ship back until it is time,' Toothless huffed. 'One less thing for us to do.'

"One less on a list of dozens," Maour agreed. He felt much better having begun this particular set of preparations, though. Whatever happened, his family would not fall if the island did.

* * *

"I gotta say," Ruffnut yelled, swinging past Einfari on Boom, "this is the most depressing reunion ever!"

'We can make it more exciting…' Blast flew up behind her. Tuffnut stood in the saddle and leaped across, punched his sister in the back and then jumped off again.

'I have to admit,' Einfari remarked as Blast caught Tuffnut by his ankles and threw him back into the air to catch properly, 'they can do some pretty insane stunts when they try.'

"And we are not going to try anything like that," Heather said firmly.

'Not yet,' Einfari countered. She fully intended to push Heather and herself to keep up with the others, no matter how crazy they got. It would just take some time and some subtle manipulation to get Heather comfortable with freefalling and other more risky activities.

'How is this a reunion?' Berg asked. 'We have all been here before.'

"Heather's been gone bossing idiots around, Maour and Fishlegs are always busy, and we try to avoid you all when you're being too serious," Ruffnut explained. "This is the first time all of us riders have been together in weeks!"

'And it's only to be lectured,' Boom dramatically sighed. 'So boring.'

'You are not here to be lectured,' Toothless huffed. 'Much.'

'See!' Blast cried out, diving away from the group. Einfari pointedly ignored him and continued to fly at a more reasonable pace within easy speaking distance of Toothless and Berg.

'I always forget how they are if I do not see them for a while,' Toothless grumbled. 'This is important, I wish they would focus.'

Einfari agreed with that sentiment, but it wasn't something she had expected to hear from Toothless. He sounded far too worried and stressed for her liking, and Maour's silence so far hinted at similar feelings.

But, she reasoned, if there was any time to be worried and stressed, it would be now. The final calm before the storm.

'Myrkurs,' she called out to the now bickering duo, 'Get up here or we will tie you up and leave you on the island when it is time to fight.'

Two intentionally misaimed shots blasted up to either side of her, detonating in the night sky with simultaneous flashes of light.

'You have our attention for as long as it takes to see something more exciting,' Boom said sullenly. 'And only because we think you might actually try that, because you hate fun.'

"Have all the fun you want after we get through this," Maour announced, speaking for the first time since they had met in the sky above the island. "First, you should know the odds."

'Which are?' Berg asked worriedly. 'I know we did_ some _damage, but not enough to make this an even fight.'

"According to Myrkurheili," Tuffnut volunteered, "they have sixty-eight ships. Maybe more, he was muttering about being one off from a joke, but then Myrkurhryðjuverk hit him so hard he was seeing triple for a while, so he didn't tell us any more than that."

"That's about right," Maour agreed. "They lost some, but not nearly enough. A good portion of those ships are scorched, damaged, or otherwise in less than perfect shape, but that's how many they have seaworthy. Our allied fleet only breaks forty if we include the supply ships, which we shouldn't."

"But we have more than a dozen Night Furies," Fishlegs said hopefully. "And a lot of good plans. So we'll win, right?"

"If we do everything right and nothing goes wrong, we definitely will," Maour promised. "And you _all _know _exactly _what you'll be doing?"

'We do,' Einfari said, joining the chorus of confirmations. She was glad to see that not even the Myrkurs needed a reminder. Her mother _had _beaten it into their heads, literally in a few cases, but one could never be sure with them.

'Good,' Toothless hummed. 'Now, on to something you might not know. Dagur and Astrid.'

"What about them?" Tuffnut asked. "We see them, we challenge them to glorious combat, and then whichever of us didn't run into them first sneaks up and stabs them from behind." He mimed a stabbing motion.

"You're exactly right," Heather said, surprising the twins. "Don't underestimate either of them, and don't fight fair. Go for the kill, not the capture."

'Because,' Toothless continued for her, 'Apparently if we capture them we cannot kill them later.'

'What?' Berg exclaimed. 'But then we cannot be sure this will not happen again! They killed Vatn, why should we hold back?' He snarled angrily.

Einfari wasn't _surprised _to see Berg mad about that; she had been spitting fire for a whole night after hearing about that particular wrinkle in the plan. It was stupidity at its most destructive.

'As far as I understand it,' Toothless growled, 'we cannot because our Viking allies would keep them prisoner, and there are unspoken rules to dealing with captive enemies. They would ransom Dagur back to his people for profit, and Astrid would at best be kept captive for another ransom later, if Dagur regained power.'

"The idea is that they all have families and leaders of their own," Maour clarified. "They won't execute a Chieftain or the wife of one, because then every tribe that heard of it would, at best, have no problem doing the same if the opportunity later arose."

'But they killed one of our own!' Bang said. 'We can't kill them for that?'

'Not out of battle, so if you get a chance, take it,' Toothless said firmly. 'Do not spare them. Taking them captive would not be the end of the world, but it is not ideal, either.'

'What's your take on this, Maour?' Ruffnut inquired, leaning over to wave a hand in front of his face. 'Awake in there?'

"I find it ironic that now, of all times, Vikings are choosing to go for the nonviolent option," Maour admitted bitterly. "But it won't come to that. They brought war to our home. They brought war to our families. We're not taking them prisoner if it's up to us." There was a rock-hard coldness to his voice that Einfari found more than adequate. By the standards of any Nótt, Maour usually straddled the line between dangerously optimistic and adequately cautious, but not on this particular issue.

"I'd drink to that if we had mead," Ruffnut proclaimed. "Heather, did you bring any back?"

"No," Heather said shortly.

"We can nick some from the Meatheads later," Tuffnut offered. "Maybe get Camicazi in on it."

"It's a plan," Ruffnut cheered. "Okay, are we done here?"

'Yes,' Toothless said. 'You have a night or two before the enemy might show up, so enjoy this while it lasts.'

"It'll last," Tuffnut said seriously. "Why else would we be fighting? We're keeping this place all to ourselves, no Berserkers allowed!"

"We won't run, either," Ruffnut agreed. "Because this island is worth killing for!"

'And because they would just find us again eventually,' Berg reminded her.

'Don't spoil her dramatic declaration of murderous intent,' Boom huffed, dropping down out of the group. Blast and Berg soon followed, leaving Toothless and Einfari alone in the air with their riders.

"You know," Heather said quietly, "If this goes the way it's been planned, Dagur and Astrid will probably just drown after we sink their ships."

"When have we ever been that lucky?" Maour asked rhetorically.

* * *

"If we capture a Night Fury," Astrid said firmly, "I want its throat slit and the body left in the hold, untouched."

"Oh, don't worry," Dagur said, a wide grin on his face. "We'll have plenty of raw material to work with after this."

"I want it untouched," Astrid repeated. "Not like this one was."

"Eh, I guess it could be better," Dagur agreed, looking down on the mangled, piecemeal remains of the corpse lying in the hold of their ship. "But I got what _I _wanted from it."

A deep rumble interrupted his musing, and he laughed wildly, ascending from the hold, Astrid right behind him. The weight on his head and shoulders was annoying, but only when he forgot what it was.

He stood at the prow of his strongest, most well-armed ship, and bid farewell to Astrid as she left, off to her own command ship. The volcano rumbled even more insistently, shaking the island and generating tiny waves that fled from the stone, clashing with the tide on the way out.

The ash cloud was thicker as of late. He waved a hand in front of his face, wondering whether it was day or night. There was no way to tell.

His new helmet slipped down, so he pushed it back up. It wasn't balanced properly. He'd have someone fix that on the way.

"Sir," Savage said, "I've just received the final reports. All is ready."

"And so am I," Dagur said happily. "Blow the horn!"

The order was relayed, and a loud horn was blown, blasting the order to advance throughout the smog. The volcano rumbled as if to add to the noise.

They were on their way to a final battle and more Night Fury corpses. The only thing that could make this departure more monumental would be the volcano exploding as they departed…

Dagur turned around and watched the mountain until it disappeared in the smog, but nothing happened.

"Can't have everything," he sighed. "Savage, assemble the men on deck for a gear inspection." He would have everything perfect for the final assault, and if his men were anything less than perfect, he'd work out some of his bloodlust too.


	42. Chapter 42

_**Author's Note: **_**It has come to my attention that this site may be sticking half a dozen between-paragraph ads in random chapters of mine and other authors on this site. If you see this sort of thing, I highly recommend getting an adblocker (as I did 5 minutes after seeing this sort of ad for the first time). It's not something I can allow or disallow from my side as an author, annoyingly.**

An ominous fleet sailed in the night, draped in shadows, the darkness offering a false sense of security. Any other enemy would have been caught completely by surprise for how nearly-invisible these ships were and would have less than half a day to prepare.

Heather smiled grimly, glad to see that her enemies were ready to fight Vikings. They had adapted a little, assuming that arriving with the morning would negate the natural advantage the night afforded Night Furies, and innovated no further. It wouldn't be enough.

"Be on the lookout for tricks," she whispered to Einfari, her voice almost lost amidst the rushing wind.

'There will be something,' Einfari said quietly, ' but I do not think it will be effective. They are not alert.'

'Alert enough, to be sailing right now,' Skarpur said, looking down at them sternly. 'How many are needed to keep their ships operating?'

"Less than half," Maour called out. "None if they decide to stick around and fight, but they're preparing for a morning battle, so most will be sleeping. You all know the plan, get in and get out."

"And have fun!" Ruffnut added from behind them. "No point if you don't have fun."

'The point is dealing out glorious mischief,' Boom corrected her.

Heather tuned them out, leaning over to stare at the fleet below. So many ships, arrayed in no recognizable formation, some separated from their compatriots by a fair distance, others almost touching with every wave that rocked them. Torches moved slowly across the decks, helpfully pointing each ship out in case attackers couldn't already see well enough in the dark.

"Choose your targets," Maour called out.

She wondered whether Maour knew he and Toothless were taking charge of the attack. It was a plan created by everyone, mostly the Nótts with help from the Svarturs, and officially there was nobody in charge, as everyone was taking part… But when it came to timing, reminders, and generally keeping the Myrkurs in line, Maour and Toothless stepped up, even though there were others with more seniority and experience.

'That one,' Einfari hissed. 'Far left, drifting away from the group, two lights that aren't moving.'

Heather could see the ship through Einfari's superior eyes. "Looks good," she agreed, gripping the saddle with both hands.

All around them, people were quietly calling out their picks. There were thirteen Night Furies in the air, five with riders, and the thirteen most vulnerable ships were quickly decided upon. Everyone had a target.

There was no dive, no furious screeching descent. Not yet. Einfari dove, but at a shallow angle, circling around to approach the fleet – and their chosen target – from behind.

Heather looked to either side, hoping for one last glimpse of the others before they were in the middle of the enemy fleet, but all she saw were fleeting shadows. Even with her enhanced perception, it was hard to see a fast-moving Night Fury against the constantly shifting backdrop of the waves and cloudy sky. The only light came from the ships, and that was no help at all.

Then they were passing heavy warships, and she had no more time to look for her friends. Einfari drifted to the side, so close to the water that they flew through the occasional spray from a collapsing wave, and approached the errant ship she had chosen.

The enemy expected that which Night Furies were known for, a diving screech, like they had done at the volcano. Dagur might have spread the story of how Togi had managed to break into a warship in secret, but without any prior warning, only the most vehement of his soldiers would be dutifully trying to spot such an attack, and they were not singling out those ships.

They were targeting the outskirts, the loners, the ships that were already damaged or substandard, and thus lagging or on their own. The easiest victories.

With two hard flaps of her wings, Einfari landed atop the rear cabin, her claws gripping the sodden wood without a sound.

'Three guards,' she reported. 'We have a little time.' Nobody was to strike loudly until they heard a commotion from another ship, thus ensuring both that everyone would have as long as possible to work silently, and that everyone would finish up what they were doing as soon as their cover was blown.

In the meantime, it was Heather's turn. She dismounted into a crouch next to Einfari and drew her bow. From where they stood, she had a view of the three Berserkers tending to the sails. There would be more below, dozens more, but only three were about at the moment.

'Conserve shots,' Einfari said. 'Hit something important.'

Important, in this case, didn't mean shooting at the Berserkers themselves. Heather had no chance of taking down all three before one sounded the alarm, not without Einfari's help, and Einfari didn't want to leap into battle if they could help it. Now was not the time for all-out combat.

Now was the time for sabotage, and that time could end at any moment. Heather pulled an arrow back, drawing and aiming as quickly as she felt comfortable with, and let go.

'Pull left,' Einfari advised as they watched her shot sail far beyond the ship to land in the ocean.

Heather nodded and drew again. This time her shot skimmed the important-looking rope holding the main sail to the wooden mast. She didn't know or care what the technical terms for said rope was; all she knew was that it clearly supported something, was tightly drawn, and was now vibrating, unnoticed by the men now leaning over the railings, staring at the horizon.

'It is fraying,' Einfari said. 'See?'

Heather checked her friend's point of view long enough to confirm that there was indeed a small notch in the side of the rope, about a quarter of the way through it. It would fray more and more with each gust of wind, so she let it go in favor of the next task.

'Quick, up,' Einfari hissed. Heather got back into the saddle and put her bow away, drawing her ax in its stead. She didn't intend to use it, but better safe than sorry.

Einfari dropped off the back of the cabin, landing on the small segment of deck between the cabin and the back end of the ship with a muted thump. She quickly leaped across the remaining distance, landing with her front paws on a conspicuous piece of wood.

"Perfect," Heather murmured. "Break it." This ship had lost its rudder, and the makeshift replacement was both obvious and poorly constructed. She didn't know much about woodworking, but even she knew that nails had to be driven _all _the way into the wood, not left jutting out all over the place.

It took Einfari all of a heartbeat to utterly dismantle the sorry piece of wood; she put her paws on one side and heaved, and that was that. The sodden crunch of snapped wood, however, was not nearly as quiet as everything else they had done thus far-

And it was immediately overshadowed by an explosive flare of fire in the distance, a hollow boom echoing out over the water.

'Time to go,' Einfari hissed, leaping straight over the railing in her haste. They were out of range in moments.

From the air, Heather could see chaos breaking out on each of the thirteen ships that had been targeted. Four were on fire, several more were outright sinking, likely the most damaged of their targets, and two were sailing in the wrong direction entirely, much to her amazement. The rest, such as hers, bore no visible signs of sabotage, but would falter and fall behind soon enough.

If that were all, she'd be satisfied with the night's work, but they weren't done. Einfari banked in the air, gliding over the fleet at high altitude, and growled dangerously. 'Middle of the right group,' she called out.

"No, the side," Heather argued. "They might fire into the air."

'Right. Side it is.' With that, they were diving again, once more lacking the distinctive Night Fury screech, but this time falling far more rapidly.

It was, Skarpur had explained to a somewhat intimidated group of Viking Chieftains back when they were planning, not necessary for a Fury to screech while preparing a strike. Strong instinct, but not _necessary_. The Berserkers were about to learn that.

Heather leaned into the saddle and closed her eyes just before Einfari fired, leaning with the abrupt and jarring jackknife to the side even as she heard the shot impact. It was all so fast, but they had practiced exactly this in preparation, and so long as she didn't get dizzy, she had no problems holding on.

The explosion didn't stop, multiple shots impacting all across the fleet in quick succession. She heard screams of pain and fury, the whistle of arrows in the air close by, and a loud splashing sound.

'Flaming boulder,' Einfari hissed as they turned. 'Not a crash.' Her voice was laden with relief. 'I see four, seven, ten- That's everyone!'

Heather opened her eyes and looked down, only to be blinded by a ball of fire rapidly speeding out over the open water, shedding flames as it went until finally it crashed into the ocean.

"Flaming boulder?" Heather repeated, confused.

'Burning stuff strapped to a rock and hurled into the air,' Einfari said. 'They will never hit one of us.'

'It is probably meant for light, however short-lived,' Skarpur interjected, flying up behind them. 'Unhurt?' she asked briskly.

'Untouched,' Einfari said proudly. 'They barely even tried.'

"Because we came in hot without any warning," Fishlegs called out, overhearing them. Night Furies were drifting in from all directions, congregating high above the enemy fleet. "We are not going back, right?"

"Nope, that's not in the plan," Maour confirmed. "Now, we go home."

Heather laughed to herself, thinking of how it must seem to the Berserkers. Awoken in the middle of the night by a stealthy round of sabotage, followed by a silent firing run. They would be up all night fixing what damage they could and waiting for another such strike. Getting no sleep, probably wasting arrows and catapulting boulders at every imagined sign of another attack, nervous and ready for a fight, and all for nothing, because their enemies were already gone.

The flight home was soberingly short, though, and by the time they reached the Nótt caverns, Heather was no longer happy about what they had done, just satisfied that the plan was going well. She knew better than to celebrate yet; they had only managed to needle the enemy, and there was far more to do before they were safe.

* * *

Dagur glared at the cloudy night sky. He couldn't see anything, and that was just what they wanted! They wanted him to get tired of seeing nothing and go to sleep, so they could strike again. Not on his watch.

"Eyes up!" he yelled. "Fire at will!"

A few of his men let loose immediately, firing into the sky at absolutely nothing. Or maybe dragons. It was impossible to tell, but the disappointing lack of shrieks or roars or yells of agony was telling.

"Sir, we're going to burn through our supply of arrows and crossbow bolts if we fire at random all night," Savage said worriedly. "We need those for the attack."

"That's why I said fire _at will!_" Dagur snapped irritably. "Shoot when you see something, not randomly! They could be anywhere, ready to strike at any moment!" He whirled, quickly looked at the top of the ship's cabin, and then darted to the rail to look down at the water in front of the ship. The first wave of sabotage had come from all directions, and struck every ship in a different way. He couldn't be too careful.

"The men are on edge," Savage said in his most annoying voice, the one he used when he knew he was saying something Dagur didn't want to hear. Dagur tapped his ax on his palm, silently urging Savage to shut up.

"We should put the crossbows and catapults away until we know they are still here," Savage continued. "Send some of the men to sleep in shifts, so we're all able to fight tomorrow."

"Never!" Dagur bellowed. He looked to the sky and shook his ax. "Come near and I'll make you into a pincushion! Try it!" He would not be outwitted. Everyone would be on guard all night, ready for the inevitable follow-up strike. That was when the enemy would bleed and die for their underhanded tactics. They would have to get close to strike, and they would have to use the darkness to do it, and he would be _ready!_

* * *

Astrid stood at the prow of her ship, watching the sun rise. She didn't care in the slightest about the beauty of the scene, but it could provide a tactical advantage to the dragons, if they meant to use it. Attacking from the East now would provide as much cover as attacking in the darkness had, but unlike the darkness, it was a slim window of opportunity they were rapidly losing.

She looked back, examining her detachment of Berserkers. They were all arrayed behind her, ready to fire at her order, but not before. A few were slumping, and all had bloodshot eyes. They weren't in top form.

Hiccup's fault, or whatever his name was. This had his ineptitude written all over it. One strike in the night, but then too cowardly to send another, forcing them to stay up all night for nothing at all. It worked, but it was not as effective as a prolonged night battle would have been, not as bloody, not as _satisfying_. Not satisfying at all, the way it had gone. A whole night wasted, many minorly crippled ships, and several sunk outright. A loss.

She _hated _that the dragons had taken first blood in this fight, hated it with every fibre of her being. If she dwelled on it too long, her arms began to shake, and she got the urge to just kill something.

Said urge was one that had to be restrained; there were no dragons present to be killed. She rubbed her new armguards absently, and her thoughts turned to the one who had stolen from her. Dagur had killed a Night Fury, without her, and he had gifted her with its lower jawbone snapped in two and fashioned into armguards. Did he know he was taunting her with such a gift? Did he know she was torn between thanking him or stabbing him when she saw what he had done?

Probably; he knew how her mind worked, because his worked the same. She was glad she hadn't killed him; his people wouldn't yet accept her as his replacement. But he had stolen a kill, so his days were numbered, just like Hiccup's.

She knew what she was going to do. Raze the island, slaughter the Furies, bear his child to secure her claim to his throne, and then prod him into getting himself killed. That would serve the hunt best in the long run; sooner or later his goals would diverge from hers, and he would hobble her to serve himself. She wouldn't let that happen.

The first step to the hunt was razing this island to the ground. That was the plan, killing and burning and destroying all that resided on the deceptively still island in front of her. She liked the plan, she had made it and coerced Dagur into seeing it as a good idea. And it was, though it meant he would probably lose more men than he would otherwise.

Maybe he would even die in this fight. She put a hand to her stomach. It was far too early to tell, and she doubted she was carrying a child of his yet, so that would be inconvenient, a stumbling block in her path. If that happened she would have to seize control by force… Or at least more force than she was already planning on using. Savage would have to die, all of Dagur's most loyal soldiers would have to die, anyone who objected to her leadership would have to die, and those he had assigned to her would probably have to die too, just in case one of them was a plant.

At least she had one man she could trust. Gobber had abandoned his tribe to follow her, and was loyal without a doubt. He had proven his loyalty by keeping silent on Stoick, and she needed him.

The sun, she realized, blinking the afterimage out of her eyes, had risen. There would be no sneaky attacks using it to blind them.

"Idiot," she said to herself, meaning it to apply to Hiccup. She was no idiot; he had forced her hand, forced her to tire her men and herself before anything happened. He was already going to die screaming, but this was enough to make her wish she could do worse than she had planned.

"South!" one of her men yelled, startling everyone, even her, though in her case it was more of a knee-jerk reaction, as she ended up with her new ax lodged in his chest. His final gasp was one of surprise and shock. He should have known better than to startle her just before battle.

"Dragons," someone else said quietly, learning from their compatriot's failure. Astrid whirled to look South.

Sure enough, dark blots were gliding high above, headed toward the fleet. She felt a savage smile cross her face, and didn't bother forcing it away. Such blatant stupidity in her prey was cause for celebration. They could not get close without dying horribly.

"Fire as soon as they are in range," she ordered. "Gobber, man the catapult." It was a stupid thing, meant to provide light through flaming boulders and proven hilariously inadequate in the night attack, but it might be useful, and she trusted Gobber to know how best to take advantage of it.

"Aye, bu' what can they be doin'?" Gobber asked, staring up at the sky. "They gotta know this will be a slaughter for 'em."

She didn't want to listen to him, but that was the reason he was around, so she forced herself to think about it. "Maybe they are stupid," she offered.

"Maybe they've got somethin' else in mind," Gobber countered. "I don' know wha', exactly, bu' somethin' tha' assumes we can't fire on 'em. Or maybe turns us against each other?"

"Don't use the catapult." She saw what he meant; a few stray boulders fired at them could easily be baited into hitting other Berserker ships. She could only hope Dagur was smart enough to realize the same thing.

"Oy… Are they carryin' something?" Gobber asked after a moment. "Somethin' grey and brownish?"

Astrid had a hard time seeing what he meant, the dragons were still so far overhead, but she thought she could make out a discoloration under each of them. From there, it didn't take long for her to figure out what was coming; she just had to think of the most dishonorable, sneaky tactic possible.

"They're dropping rocks," she spat angrily. "My orders stand, fire as soon as they fly over." Maybe one would fly too low.

"They're not gonna be low enough," Gobber said morosely, even as the first flight of arrows left the leading ships of the fleet. The dark clouds rose and fell in an arc, never coming close to the necessary altitude. The first dragon dropped its boulder, and the large rock, about the size of an average Viking torso, struck one of the ships with a crash she could hear, even from the back of the fleet.

"New plan," Gobber yelled. "Brace for impact! Everyone drop yer weapon and find somethin' to patch big holes wit'!"

"Do that," Astrid agreed, backing her second in command almost without thought. She took a dropped crossbow for herself and aimed at the rapidly approaching group of dragons. There were thirteen in all, and she wanted to gut and mutilate every single one before she killed them, if they would only fly lower!

One of the dragons in particular caught her eye, the only one with a rider. She gritted her teeth as that one released its rock high above her ship. The rock fell fast, dropping through the air and forward at the same time, and struck the ship directly next to hers with a crash, bowling the mast over in a single strike.

"I'll kill you," she muttered to herself, glaring at the dragons, and the rider in particular. They were ruining her hunt, crippling her ships, making the fleet weaker and more disorganized, and she hated them for it. They would all die, and their island would burn, and whatever else she could think of to make them suffer as much as possible. Nobody interfered with her hunt, least of all the prey!

* * *

'I told you I was aiming right,' Toothless grumbled. He wasn't really bothered; Maour's worry had only made it more satisfying to see his rock take out an entire mast and cripple a ship.

"That's what I get for trying to correct a Night Fury's aim," Maour laughed. "But in my defense, I thought your claws had slipped. We weren't even over them yet!"

'Oh, come on,' Boom said. 'Every halfway-decent prankster knows how to drop things from a height. They keep moving forward after you let go.'

"Unless they're light and catch the wind," Blast added. "Then it's up to luck." He nodded to himself, possibly hearing some quip from his currently absent rider.

'Maour is not a prankster, so of course he did not know,' Toothless snorted. 'Weren't you all going to race back to the mountain for your next rocks?' It would probably be better if they staggered their attacks, just to keep the enemy on alert longer.

'I vetoed that,' Skarpur growled. 'Waste of energy, and they're liable to drop a rock. We don't have any to spare.'

'If only some people had spent more time blasting out _usable _boulders,' Einfari sighed. 'Yours are great, Berg, but only you can lift them, and I bet they took longer to get than the others.'

"It's worth it," Berg retorted.

Toothless looked back at Berg, who was flying at the back of the group, and saw a smug, toothless grin. 'How much damage?' he asked curiously.

'The whole ship was under the water by the time we left,' Berg purred. 'It went right through.'

"I think maybe we should have gotten _more _boulders for Berg," Maour said approvingly as they neared the mountain.

'I can only carry so many before my wings start hurting,' Berg admitted. 'Fishlegs, get the twins off of my next rock!'

Toothless looked down at the mountaintop and quickly spotted the twins leaping from rock to rock, taking advantage of the natural obstacle course that had been assembled there, lines of boulders ranging in size and position. Fishlegs rushed one of the substantially larger rocks and began laboriously rolling it away from the others, removing it from the twins' reach.

'I wish I could carry those,' he said to Maour. 'Maybe we should have been strength training all these years, like they did.'

"Keep in mind, Berg is the slowest of all of us," Maour whispered back. "It has tradeoffs."

'Such as being able to sink ships from above without any danger,' Toothless snorted. He didn't _really _want to be like Berg; he quite liked his own sleek, powerful form. It was just very useful in this particular situation. His own strengths would likely be just as useful later.

'Mine!' Berg roared down at the twins, who were now trying to roll the largest boulder back to the rest. He landed with a flare of his wings, flapped a few times to drive the twins off, and pounced on the rock, wrapping his muscular limbs around it before taking off again.

'Sink another one,' Toothless called out encouragingly, looking down and selecting a smaller rock of his own. He hoped Berg could do more damage than he could; a few knocked-askew masts wouldn't be enough to turn the tide in their favor, even if it was helpful.

* * *

"Shoot harder!" Dagur screamed, berating his men with every breath of air he could obtain. "Aim higher!"

None argued with him, though they all knew his commands to be pointless. He had already decapitated one reluctant Berserker that morning, and they knew to obey.

He longed to walk out from under the cover of the cabin and strike another, maybe push him overboard or crush him with the rock that had broken their mast and tore a hole in their deck, but he knew better. He wouldn't show himself until an _actual _battle began; to do otherwise was to ask to be targeted by a dozen honorless boulders. He wanted to kill, not to be squashed like a bug. So long as they didn't know which ship he was on, they wouldn't directly target him.

So, he settled for screaming from the doorway and slamming his ax into things at random. His cabin would never recover from his wrath, but who cared about that? The jagged shards of wood were good for throwing at his men.

He was in the middle of cutting through a table when Savage arrived. "Tell me they have landed and are fighting," he gritted, yanking his ax from the devastated piece of furniture. The map with the battle plan dangled off the tip of his ax.

"They have landed and are fighting, sir," Savage said.

"Really?" Dagur exclaimed.

"No, but they have not gone back for more boulders this time," Savage admitted, ducking as soon as Dagur twitched. "The enemy fleet is still approaching."

"Fine," Dagur groaned, his anger fleeing in an instant, replaced with pure anticipation. "How many did we lose?"

"Four ships sank, three with destroyed masts, and several dozen with holes in their decks or minor leaks," Savage reported. "Your wife says her ships are fine, regardless of that."

"As they should be." Losing four ships and having many more crippled was an _infuriating _prelude to the glorious battle, made even more so by the last attack, but all of these strikes were like bug bites, insignificant. So what if his fleet had been weakened a little? That would just make the fight closer and therefore more intense!

"We are going ahead as planned, Sir?" Savage asked.

"Duh," Dagur replied, shaking the map off his ax. He didn't need it; he could see a sickeningly green island in the distance, a mountain rising behind the snivelling excuses for Vikings sailing toward them. By the end of the day, that green jungle would be a charred, smoking bonfire. Possibly sooner, given the battle plan.

* * *

By noon, the fleets were closing in. The Berserkers formed a triangle-shaped wedge with their ships, the most crippled and worthless at the very back, lagging behind as they struggled with the damage done in the previous strikes.

Looking at the enemy fleet from the deck of one of the Bog Burglar ships, it didn't look like their two initial strikes had done anything to weaken the enemy, but Heather knew that was an illusion. Trust the Berserkers to look and act like they hadn't suffered a scratch when in reality they had already been bloodied. Any Viking would do that, but the Berserkers would do it even when they were badly wounded. Their insane Chieftains drove them forward.

"I know my warriors will keep to the plan," Bertha said, "but it's not all that Vikingly. Ya might not get what ya want from everyone else. Blood gets hot, the plan goes out the window and into the outhouse."

"It shouldn't," Heather retorted. "This is the only way we win for sure." She didn't care if it was less honorable than just fighting it out. They couldn't afford to be honorable when they were outnumbered at least two to one on the human side of things.

'We have only a few more moments before we need to be in the air,' Einfari called down. She was perched atop the ship's cabin, so as to get a slightly higher viewpoint, and Camicazi was perched beside her.

"I'm not sayin' my people will toss it aside," Bertha assured her. "I like the plan, and I like that ye got a woman makin' it. Woman dragon. Close enough." She hefted her sword and swung it through the air a few times.

Heather didn't see why that mattered all that much, and considered telling Bertha that Skarpur had consulted her mate, a male, in thinking up said plan, but decided against it. It didn't matter why Bertha was happy with the plan so long as she was, and it _shouldn't _matter that the Vikings in general didn't like it. Their chieftains had sworn to follow it, and they would follow their chieftains, even if that following would involve more retreating than they might prefer.

"Hey, Heather," Camicazi called out. "If this all goes horribly wrong, want to come join our tribe?"

"Not particularly, but ask me again if the time comes," Heather suggested. That was probably the best of a bad set of options, should such a thing happen. She didn't want to think about how this might go wrong.

'It will not happen,' Einfari growled.

"It's not going to happen," Heather echoed, taking her friend's words to heart. She wouldn't lose another island, another home, another family, not to Dagur, not to Astrid, not to anyone!

* * *

From above, the two clashing fleets looked like nothing more than a bunch of toy ships bumping together in a rippling pool of water. If Maour squinted, he could almost believe that was all he was seeing. A line of two dozen toy ships crashing against another line of two dozen, that line backed up by more ships behind it.

The noises, though, could not be misinterpreted or ignored. The war cries, the yells, the manly shouts and exclamations of pain and triumph.

Toothless angled downward and circled the battlefield, if one could call a mash of Viking warships a field at all. Arrows rained out from the enemy fleet, but none came close. They were not yet in range. None of the Furies were.

"Come on, give us something to shoot at," Maour murmured, hunching low in the saddle. Boarding planks were being lowered on both sides, Vikings swarming across to meet in the middle and grapple, others peppering the enemy with arrows and forcing them to return fire, an unvikingly tactic that would have caught the Berserkers by surprise had so many of them not already been armed with a ranged weapon-

One of the Berserker ships' sail caught fire, something none of the Berserkers aboard cared about in the least, caught up in the thrill of battle. It was no danger on its own, likely to burn away without setting anything else alight, and they were far too busy returning fire and taking the fight to the enemy, pushing the Meatheads back across the gang planks until they were fighting on the Meathead ship.

'Go time,' Toothless barked, seeing the same thing. Maour flicked the tailfin in as they plummeted, gaining speed and losing height at equally rapid paces. They leveled out just above the waterline, moving so fast Maour had to duck his head and look through Toothless' eyes.

The ship with the burning sail was directly ahead, on the outskirts of the fight, and Toothless was there in moments. He fired twice on the first pass, and then swung out around the back of the defending line of ships.

'Did we get them?' Toothless asked. 'I couldn't tell.'

"You were the one firing!" Maour laughed.

As they gained height over the conflict once more, Maour could see that the burning ship was rapidly sinking. Now the Meatheads were surging forward, forcing the Berserkers to remain on their doomed ship.

That was the plan, or at least a big part of it. Engage, retreat enough that nobody on their side was on the Berserker ship, and hold them like that. On its own, that would ensure a profitable but likely dangerous strafing run could be attempted.

Another two sails caught alight, and two more Furies dove to strike the ships in question, steering clear of the Berserker ships not yet caught up in the forefront of the fight. The archers on the ships under attack were all busy holding their own against the archers on the defending side, not looking for Night Furies, and thus the way was clear.

"It's working!" Maour exclaimed. The ship he and Toothless had hit was sinking, clearing the way for the next Berserker vessel to sail up and engage, intent on avenging their fallen tribesmen… and likely falling into the same trap.

* * *

"Go, go, go, drop those boarding planks!" Dagur screamed, his blood pounding in his ears. His ship jockeyed into position against the Meathead vessel, taking the place of the sunken, dragon-razed ship that had preceded it. "Eyes on the sky!" he continued, spinning to address his contingent of dedicated crossbowmen.

Then he spun back, unbalancing his new helmet, which was still unwieldy. The top half of a Night Fury skull did not sit easily on one's head, no matter how much leather padding was added. His next skull helmet would be smaller, more easily worn. Maybe with horns, or something.

Dagur almost forgot about the battle raging around him as he contemplated replacing the floppy ears on his current helmet with spikes. It was only the thumping of gangplanks that jolted him back into the present.

"Death and glory!" he yelled, shoving aside a few of his men to rush onto the gangplank. The Meathead opposite him went down in an instant, an arrow in the side of his neck, but his replacement carried an unusually large shield, a rectangular one instead of the normal circle.

Dagur stopped just short of the shield and kicked at it, readying his ax. His metal-toed boot did no damage to the shield, of course, but it _sounded _like he had hit it with metal.

The moment the Meathead moved his shield aside, Dagur lunged, jabbing forward with his ax and totally ignoring the sword the man was trying to bring around to bear on him. It was hard to hit anything when one's throat was in the process of being cut, as the Meathead was finding out.

Two arrows whistled by as Dagur discarded the man's corpse, pushing it over the side of the wide gangplank to clear a way. Some of his men returned fire, blatantly disregarding his orders to watch the sky, not the fight. He was tempted to turn around and instill some discipline-

The next Meathead stomped forward, his mighty weight making the gangplank shake with every step, and Dagur was forced to focus. He chose to close the distance, taking three quick steps toward the man, and then dropped low.

Sure enough, the Meathead threw his mace out in a wide arc. Such a move would have knocked anyone who blocked right off the gangplank, such was the force behind his swing, but Dagur just leaped forward on his hands and knees, stabbed his ax through the man's boot, and then shoved him aside when he lifted his foot, pulling his remaining leg and pushing in opposite directions. The man toppled off the gangplank, and Dagur caught some air as the wooden pathway bounced from the impact and then subsequent disappearance of so much weight.

More arrows passed through the air around him, coming from both sides, and he decided that he was going to kill his crossbowmen once this was all over. They weren't covering the ship, and any moment now a Night Fury was going to fly by and destroy it.

Some idiots thought a Chieftain should go down with his ship, but Dagur wasn't one of them. He hurried forward along the gangplank, taking advantage of a momentary lack of Meatheads blocking the way, and made it almost to the edge of their ship before another stepped out of the seething mass to block his way-

No, to kick his way out from under him! Dagur lunged forward just as the gangplank was knocked to the side, slammed his ax into the man who had tried to take him out, and grabbed onto the edge of the ship with his free hand. He hauled himself forward and pulled the corpse over the side in the same movement, switching places with the man he had just killed in a move he would be proud of if he weren't so intent on the fight. There was no time for thinking about what he had just done, or how unlikely it was that he would survive.

This was a fight, and he was going to fight it out, not worry about it. What point was planning if one didn't get to live for the moment once it came?

A sword descended toward his head, so he swung his ax, and then stepped to the side as a knife came flashing in from that direction. He was beset from all sides, but thanks to the bulk of his enemies, that really only meant fighting two or three at once, and from the sound of it, he was not alone in having stormed their ship.

His ax met unguarded flesh and stuck there, so he pulled himself forward, driving the Meathead to the ground and shoving his ax deeper still before twisting it and yanking it out.

A blunt object struck him in the back, a glancing blow, and he growled like an animal before turning and swinging his ax all in one motion, in turn glancing off the helmet of a short Meathead with two maces and a lack for self-preservation that Dagur admired. No wimpy shields for this one.

Though, he thought as he punched the man's nose and subsequently disemboweled him, a shield might have served this particular Meathead better than a mace. The man clearly hadn't been expecting such a quick response.

Done with his latest victim, Dagur was momentarily devoid of enemies, a situation that confused him more than the melee he had found himself in up to this point. He looked around, noticing that he was in a small circle clear of corpses, and the only people he could reach were wearing Berserker armor.

His men were being held off by Meatheads with more large, rectangular shields, and it seemed they were at a temporary stalemate. "Push them back!" Dagur yelled, contemplating climbing up the back of one of his larger Berserkers and leaping into the fray once more.

The crackling sounds of a fire, somehow loud above the guttural grunts of the fight, caught his attention, and he turned to see his ship's sail alight, burning fiercely. His men weren't bothering to put it out, all busy either swarming aboard the Meathead ship, or firing at their suddenly defensive ranks. Not a single one was watching the sky.

As if summoned by their very lack of a proper defense, a black blur darted down from somewhere and flew low, disappearing between the two ships. Dagur didn't see the explosion, but he saw how his ship rocked, the gangplanks all dislodged, and then promptly began to sink in a way any decent Viking knew meant it was unrecoverable, rapidly tilting to one side as it descended into the depths of the ocean.

More than half the men on his ship were out of the fight just like that, doomed to either drown or cast off their armor and weapons to survive. He shook his bloody ax at the dragon as it darted away, so quick that he couldn't even see if it had a rider, and wished he had a crossbow in his hands, for all the good it would do him.

"Sir, breach," one of his men shouted, and Dagur whirled, his agitation forgotten, to see a break in the shield wall. He charged forward with a trio of his best warriors, screaming at the top of his lungs. Their charge shattered the shield wall, every man in it in turn beset from the side and dispatched like a rolling wave. Dagur laid about himself with his ax, losing sight of everything except the blood and the enemies and the thrill of battle flaring in his veins like fire. He took wounds and ignored them utterly, and dealt far more fatal blows in return, and in what felt like no time at all, his men were backing away from him as his ax sought enemies and found none.

This was the worst part of battle, in a way, and one he almost forgot only to experience anew every time. The urge to kill was not yet satiated, and the desire to just keep going clouded his mind, maybe turning him against his own people and striking his own tribe if he gave in.

That was what pulled him back, as always. The thought that he would be attacking his tribe. He cared little for any individual, but the tribe, the Berserkers, his purpose? That was worth any amount of sacrifice.

Dagur threw his ax down, still very much hungry for blood and death, and sat on a corpse. "Report," he said raggedly, craving something to bring him back into battle.

"We've secured this vessel, Sir," someone said. "Lost more than half our men, but some might have survived the sinking of our ship, and there's armor and weaponry here to outfit them."

"Battle as a whole?"

"Hard to tell," the man admitted. "We still far outnumber them, but your wife's contingent is staying back, so we're facing them on equal terms."

"Good," Dagur grunted. That was part of the plan. "And the dragons?"

"Firing on ships when our archers are distracted, sinking them and wiping out whole ships worth of fighters. Not all of them, the fighting is on our ships in a lot of cases, but some."

"We need to end this," Dagur decided, speaking to himself more than his men. He stood, retrieved his ax, picked up his Night Fury helmet from where it had fallen at some point during the fight, and strode to the ships' helm. "Get this thing turned around! We're ramming them!" The dragons and their craven allies were playing a sneaky tactic, and he hated them for it. The best way to stop it was to just forge ahead and kill all who got in the way. Astrid could handle the strategy on their side; he was just here to kill as many as he could to draw attention.

As his men turned to the sails and rudder, taking control of the ship as quickly as they could, Dagur scaled the mast, hoping to get a good view of the battle. He stopped low on the mast, unwilling to go too high when he might have to leap off if anyone noticed him and decided to take a shot, but he was high enough to take in the chaos.

And glorious chaos it was. The tidy battle lines were gone, save for Astrid's ships lying in wait, mostly untouched, and the ragged line of defenders. Dragons flitted around, firing on weak points and being fired at in turn, though not nearly enough to deter or even hit them. Some had landed; he could see two fighting on a ship, terrors ripping his men apart with a ferocity even he could respect. All the while, ships were pushing and shoving at each other, blood was being shed, bodies dumped or pushed overboard, the occasional unarmed, unarmored soldier clinging to the side of a ship, trying to rejoin the fight or at least survive the battle…

It was _glorious_, and he couldn't wait to get back into it. There was a Bog Burglar ship to one side of the one he had just taken over, and a Waxear ship to the other side. The Waxears were fighting a full shipload of Berserkers, but the Bog Burglars were steadily beating back their opponents, much to his disgust.

"We're going that way," he announced, dropping off the mast. They would ram the Bog Burglars, give his men there a chance to rally, and then charge in to slaughter whatever remained. From there, they would go to the next ship, and the next, until their numbers properly overwhelmed the defenders.

But he couldn't forget about Night Furies. "You, you, and you," he said, selecting three men at random and pointing them to the nearest corpses, "get us crossbows and bolts." He'd pick a few more men, arm them with nothing else, and give one the sole task of firing on his compatriots if they stopped watching for dragons. _That _would keep them on their designated task.

An impact rocked the ship, and Dagur laughed maniacally, hefting his ax. "Once more into the bloodbath," he sighed happily. They had turned and rammed the Bog Burglars, just as planned-

A loud shriek alerted him to the incoming strike, and he dove behind a small pile of bodies, reacting on pure instinct long since drilled into every Viking warrior. Said instinct saved him from the bright blue detonation that scattered many of his warriors, most in multiple pieces, and ripped the rudder from the ship.

"Fire!" one of his men yelled. The ones he had set to scavenging crossbows hastily aimed and fired at the rapidly approaching dragon, sending out the most pathetic volley Dagur had seen all day, barely half a dozen bolts in all.

The dragon shrieked and flared its wings, trying and failing to turn. The sunlight shining through one of its dark membranes was enough to give Dagur a rush of heady exhilaration, though he only saw it for a heartbeat as the creature struggled to avert its dive and land in friendly territory. It failed to do anything like that, only barely remaining in the air long enough to hit their mast.

Dagur was forced to dive out of the way again as the mast fell with a crash, obliterating a portion of the deck and quite a few of the corpses as it hit. He rolled to his feet with glee and rushed the dark mass sprawled across the deck.

Said dragon wasn't dead, as Dagur almost immediately discovered. It whipped its tail at the closest Berserker, disarming him in a neat move that was followed by a brutal bite, immediately killing him. The dragon hunched in on itself, clearly injured and enraged, and struck out at anyone that came near.

Though it was against his very nature to hesitate, Dagur forced himself to stop outside of its reach for a moment. He eyed it, looking for a weakness, a place to strike that it couldn't protect. It didn't really seem to have any, not when it was wary and ready to strike with deadly force.

That didn't mean he was giving up. It was a dragon, he knew how to fight and kill dragons. He crouched to pick up a shattered shield with a metal rim, and began slamming the rim against the blunt of his ax.

The dragon shook its head, disoriented, and snarled at the dozen or so Berserkers left alive. It wasn't flying away, which Dagur attributed to its injured wing, and now it wasn't seeing straight.

"Charge!" He ran slower than the rest of his men, letting them be catapult fodder to test its reactions.

The first to reach the dragon died to a small bolt of blue fire, losing his head in an instant. The second was rent by claws. The third got in a few hits to the torso, and then Dagur was in range, hacking at the underside of a raised paw, and then striking inward, to the armpit, or whatever passed for an armpit on a beast like this. Blood fountained out-

And then blood covered his face as the dragon reared back, snarling loudly, and leaped on them. Its toothy maw ripped apart a Berserker and then clamped down on Dagur's shoulder, piercing deep.

"Ha!" Dagur yelled savagely, driving his ax up into the soft, vulnerable part of its chin, piercing up into the head. He shoved harder, glaring into its frenzied yellow eyes, and yelled victoriously when the light faded from them.

They collapsed together, its teeth still buried in his left shoulder and arm. The ship rocked with another impact, though Dagur knew not what, only that it wasn't another Night Fury. That was good; he couldn't handle another just yet. He needed someone to take the teeth out of his shoulder, stitch him up, and get him to another ship's worth of Berserkers to lead.

But all of that was going to happen; they were winning the fight. This was just the first of many Night Furies he would kill this day. Astrid had better hurry if she wanted to claim any of the glory for herself.

_**Author's Note: **_**I'm well aware that it's almost impossible to tell how the overall battle is going; that's intentional. Also, no, I will not say who Dagur just killed. There are two facts that will help you narrow it down quite substantially, but I'm not going to confirm or deny anything. **


	43. Chapter 43

The sound was so normal that Einfari almost missed it. Diving screeches were instinctive, providing intimidation and somewhere for the churning air in her mouth to go when forming a fireball.

But she wasn't supposed to be hearing any diving shrieks, not here and now, and she knew it meant something was going wrong, so she turned, trusting Heather to lean with her. 'Who was that?' she demanded, on the off chance that Heather would see first, and so that Heather knew why she was turning away from their chosen flight path.

"The screech?" Heather asked. "I don't know, maybe one of the Myrkurs forgot to hold it in?"

'Wouldn't be the first time they've disobeyed orders from mom,' Einfari grumbled, scanning the battlefield for the interloper. Nobody was making diving runs at the moment; there were no flaming sails up. Some of the others had landed on allied ships to rest for a moment, a few were in the thick of the fighting-

She saw them even as she thought about being in the midst of the fighting. Unidentifiable at this distance, a dark blur fighting all alone on a hostile ship, facing a group of Berserkers. There was no allied force backing up whoever that was!

'Trouble,' she barked, leaning into a dive without even thinking about it. The Fury ignored an opening to take off, either because of stubbornness or injury. She was far, high in the sky and above the other side of the field of battle, but she could be there in moments.

"Faster," Heather urged as they sped closer.

Einfari tried, pulling her wings in and allowing herself to fall as much as she flew. The fight was going badly, the Myrkur, for that was who they had to be, too skilled to be an Eldur and too reckless to be anyone else, was faltering-

A wiry, smaller Berserker met the Myrkur, and both stopped in a way that made Einfari tense her wings. Her worst fears were confirmed when the Myrkur slumped, clearly disabled or dead.

Heather spat something unintelligible, either because it was a curse Einfari didn't know or just not meant to make sense, and Einfari dove harder. If the Myrkur wasn't dead, they would intervene.

"No," Heather gritted, pulling on the saddle. "That was Dagur. He's not taking prisoners."

'Right,' Einfari snarled, turning aside well before anyone on the ship in question noticed her approach. She had been far too late, in the end, and she could see the archers lining up on the deck of the ship, ready to fire, undistracted by all of the chaos around them.

It hurt, seeing one of the people she had grown up around dead on an enemy ship, out of reach. She didn't even know who they were, whether it was Boom, Blast, or one of the older adults. Had the obnoxious but sometimes entertaining Myrkurheili been killed, or was it Myrkureyðileggingu, the crazy, enthusiastic old male? Or was it one of the parents, mother or father ripped away from their children? It hurt no matter who they were, but not knowing for sure somehow hurt more. They had just lost someone.

But, she reluctantly realized, as much as she wanted to avenge whoever that was, they had other priorities. Dagur would get what was coming to him; she was already bound to help Heather end him, and now it was just that much more personal. They just had to wait until either he was vulnerable or the only enemy left on the battlefield to deal with.

A sail burst into flame near where she had ended up, and she dove for that instead, glad to have something she _could _do, to take her mind off the madman they couldn't kill just yet.

* * *

Camicazi jerked her arm back as a Berserker threatened to crush it with a mace, wishing the ship would stop rocking for just one moment. Something had struck their ship, something big, and it was rolling back and forth as if it was about to sink, throwing her off.

She jabbed a knife at the Berserker's hand, forcing him to withdraw it or lose it, and swayed with the ship as it rocked back again, wishing she had more weight and a lower center of balance, like her mother. It would come in handy here-

Another mace swung in from behind, smashing down on the Berserker's helmet so hard she saw his eyes roll back in the instant before his body crumpled. One of her mother's best warriors, interfering. She gestured briskly for Camicazi to retreat, before turning to wade right back into the melee.

If this were the start of the battle, Camicazi would have refused, but she had been fighting for too long already, and was too tired to fight an order that probably came from her mother. She fell back from the rough battle lines, and another woman took her place immediately, shoring up the admittedly small gap she had left behind.

"Idiots," she heard her mother griping. She turned to see Bertha berating Thuggory, of all people. "Just because it's all gone to Hel doesn't mean throw away the plan for your own!"

"It wasn't _my _plan," Thuggory stressed. "They bashed our ship into yours before we retook the rudder."

"Fine, wha'ever," Bertha growled, waving her bloodstained sword at him and turning away. "I'm goin' back into the fight 'ere, we gotta clear our ships before we can do anythin' else."

"I already cleared mine," Thuggory retorted sullenly.

Camicazi wasn't about to miss the chance to needle him, in the middle of a battle or not, so she smirked in his general direction. "Finally returned to the battle?" she called out.

"I've been here this whole time," Thuggory said irritably, glaring at her. "How could I not have been? We're on _ships_."

"I don't know, it just seems like you disappeared the moment Mogadon's injury healed," she quipped, feigning casual interest. She was actually interested in the reason he had all but vanished since then, but she could annoy him and get answers at the same time if she played it right, stealing information and amusement in tandem.

"I stepped down as acting Chief once the true Chieftain was able to return to duty," Thuggory said stiffly, probably speaking more for the Meatheads he had brought over with him than for her. He knew by now that she didn't fall for that sort of thing.

"Sure, sure," she said sarcastically, "and he put you aside so he could feel in charge." She understood now; Mogadon had pushed his heir into the shadows out of insecurity, an ironic flaw in such a big, obnoxious man. That was something she and her mother could use to needle the Meatheads in the future… Assuming they all got out of this alive.

"Shut up," Thuggory said tiredly.

"So long as you don't go 'Dagur' on him," Camicazi admonished him.

"Shut up," he repeated. "What are those stupid dragons _doing_?"

"I thought you wanted me to shut up," she said, interested despite herself. A quick glance up showed nothing amiss, aside from there only being four dragons actually in the air. That _was _odd; the plan called for them to fly until…

"You idiots didn't follow the plan, did you?" she asked.

"Shut up," Thuggory repeated, apparently too stupid to come up with another retort.

"Oh, come on!" Camicazi said angrily. "It was so easy, so devious! Fight, draw some of them onto our ships, get their archers occupied, then let the dragons sink their ships!" She _liked _that plan, it was just the sort of thing her tribe would do.

"You try controlling Vikings when they get into a fight," Thuggory shot back.

Camicazi dramatically turned to face the slowly shrinking front lines, and the decided _lack _of a Berserker ship behind that. "Yes, it's impossible. Clearly I am hallucinating."

"Real Vikings," Thuggory corrected himself.

"Real idiots!" She didn't bother asking how badly the Meatheads had screwed up; Thuggory wouldn't give her a real answer. Instead, she ran to the prow of the ship and looked out over the battlefield, or in this case battle-ocean.

Chaos, complete and utter chaos. In other circumstances it would have brought a smile to her face, but chaos instead of a clever plan was just disappointing. There were sinking Berserker ships, but far too many remained afloat, some were maneuvering over to the side, and the Meathead warships were all still locked in combat with what she assumed were the first Berserkers to reach them. Those ships still had intact sails, archers watching the skies, probably making things hard for the dragons, and definitely defending their ships.

"Your people are braindead," she declared scathingly. There were dragons fighting on Meathead ships, probably because they couldn't do anything else at the moment. That wasn't supposed to happen, and it was all the Meatheads' fault. The dragons were ripping through enemy lines, it seemed, relatively safe from archers when they were in the thick of it, but they weren't as _efficient _fighting like common soldiers.

"So are the Waxears and Rockbreakers, then," Thuggory grunted. "It was a stupid plan."

"It was _working _until everyone else screwed it up," Camicazi retorted, not taking her eyes off the panorama of violence in front of her. She could even see a few Berserker ships breaking the line of defense; a group of Berserkers had overrun one of the Meathead warships entirely, and was using it to break the line.

As she watched, a dragon dove, aiming for the captured Meathead vessel, and was shot down. It fought on the deck and was quickly killed, though she was too far away to see by who, or how. Maybe they weren't so great on the ground when they were surrounded and alone, but that wasn't supposed to happen.

"Idiots," she repeated, knowing that there was nothing she could do but rant about it. She was stuck on a ship, and the larger battle was passing them by. Whatever that big group of untouched Berserker ships was doing off to the side, there was nothing anyone could do to hinder them, not when everyone was busy fighting the enemies that _should _have been quickly dealt with.

Nothing anyone stuck to the ground could do, anyway. Maybe the dragons could pull this mess out of the fire before it was too late. If they could just find a way around being shot out of the sky whenever they got close to an undistracted Berserker ship, that was.

Camicazi wiped her knives on the railing and decided to go back to the front lines and help her mother finish off the Berserkers. It was a small thing, almost inconsequential in the larger battle, but maybe once they could focus on the larger battle, they could make a difference.

* * *

The roars of two Night Furies at close range had a devastating effect on Berserkers. Not fear, not in the middle of a hand to hand battle, but the pure _volume _disabled them for a moment, much as metallic clanging did for dragons.

Maour knew this well, and when both Toothless and Cloey roared in unison, he took the chance to hook the curve of his scythe over a shield and yank it down before jabbing forward, breaking the front line for everyone else.

'Arrows!' Toothless called out, ducking and jerking back to avoid an ax blow as a trio of arrows flew overhead. Cloey had opted to haul a Berserker up to cover herself, and Maour just ducked a little, facing the next Berserker in the defensive line.

This wasn't the plan, but the plan had faltered and failed almost from the beginning, and this had to be done anyway. These Berserkers had seized one of the few Rockbreaker warships, and had enough archers that they couldn't be sunk from the outside. Fighting on the deck, along with a few Waxears from the next ship over, was the only fast way to retake the ship before it could be used to wreck the defensive line further.

Thus, the Berserkers were defending a ship that wasn't theirs. Thankfully, that very fact was tripping them up; Rockbreaker ships were messy and littered with metal chains that substituted for certain ropes, tripping hazards for the average Viking.

Seeing one such coil of heavy metal links, Maour shifted to the side and let the next Berserker run right into it in an attempt to overwhelm him. Cloey slammed the edge of her wing down on the Berserker the moment he tripped, driving him to the deck with such force that his upper body bounced.

'Get the shield down,' Toothless grunted, dodging three different axes thrown from the dwindling crowd. It wasn't clear who he was asking, but Maour could see the shield he meant, a heavy circular one being held in front of two archers. A strong blast would probably get one of them, but fire was in short supply.

'On it,' Cloey barked, stepping back to let two Waxears past, and by extension gaining a moment of respite. She was bleeding from a few shallow cuts, but most of the blood on her was from the Berserkers.

Cloey crouched, and Toothless roared loudly as she did, drawing everyone's attention to him for a moment. A silent leap had Cloey behind the lines, and a quick sweep of her paws had both archers and the shieldbearer over the railing, blindsided and out of the fight just like that. She proceeded to rip into the back line, taking advantage of their distraction.

Even as he hurried forward to help mop up the last of the Berserkers, Maour felt out of place. He _could _fight, though he had done precious little of it up until now, but he didn't feel right in the middle of a pitched battle. Not when his brother and mother were there, in danger, and he couldn't do anything to protect them. Their skill aside, it made him worry, though he knew that was a stupid way to feel in the middle of a battle.

"Charge!" one of the Waxears yelled, and they all ran forward, joining the fray. It was over in moments, the enemy beset on both sides.

'That was messy,' Toothless observed, licking a shallow gash on his paw. 'Easy, though. It's nice when there aren't a dozen archers aiming at us at all times.'

'That's the way we fight best,' Cloey agreed, leaping back over the pile of bodies the final push had left behind. 'I'm out of practice.' She was sporting a new wound on the side of her neck, a long slash with a strange depression in the center.

"What happened?" Maour asked worriedly. Cloey was acting as if it was fine, but it didn't _look _fine.

'Someone swung a mace, and I didn't hit them in time,' Cloey said briskly, tilting her neck to either side. 'It was already stinging, and now it aches too, but I'm fine.'

'This is a lot of blood,' Toothless observed, licking his mother's wound. 'Maybe you should stay here for a little while.'

'I've taken far worse, it just looks bad,' Cloey said confidently. 'I'm okay. What about you two?"

"Fine here," Maour reported.

'Cuts, scrapes, nothing more,' Toothless said confidently. 'They weren't ready for us, and they weren't fast enough.'

'Humans are almost never fast enough, the trick is hurting them without getting hurt at the same time,' Cloey asserted. 'But this is just one fight. Go see where else you can help. I'm going to stay here until the bleeding stops, then go find another fight to help with.'

"Stay safe," Maour said.

'Brother, we're in the middle of a battle,' Toothless snorted. 'But yes,' he added, 'safe.'

'No promises,' Cloey rumbled. 'That always seems to lead to them being broken.'

'If you say so,' Toothless rumbled. The moment Maour settled into the saddle he was off, leaving their mother and one liberated ship behind, trading the small fight for the larger battle, which had continued without them.

Maour's heart sank as he took in the scene below. It was all falling apart. Everyone was still fighting, but there were too many Berserker ships, and some were as of yet untouched, slowly sailing _around _the entire battle, aiming for the island. The Furies were doing great when they could get into a fight without being shot at on the way there, but there were precious few such fights available, and their human allies were severely outnumbered.

'Good thing nobody is home,' Toothless said quietly, looking at the Isle. 'Think we can stop them?'

"Not without somehow freeing up the rest of the fleet or becoming invulnerable to arrows,' Maour admitted. There were too many Berserkers, and the entire defending line was tied up in fighting them. Most of the other Furies were down on the ships, fighting where the archers couldn't easily target them, and they were likely all low or entirely out of fire.

'And somehow ignoring my shot limit,' Toothless added. 'I have a few left, but I'd need a lot more than a few for that.' He sounded almost hopeful, though that was an impossibility.

Maour thought about it as they glided above the conflict. "Maybe we can gather everyone up to do a run at them?" he proposed.

'The arrows,' Toothless reminded him. 'I think we have to leave them be for now.' He sounded mad about that, a sentiment Maour wholly agreed with. They had gotten this far, but if those ships made land, the one thing they couldn't keep safe would be ruined. Even with everyone long gone from the island, that stung.

But there wasn't anything he could do to stop it, and if he wanted to be effective he had to focus on the things he could change. The island was serving as a decoy, a distraction, and to a good fifth of the remaining Berserker warships. That was a small victory if he looked at it in the right way. If those ships had joined the battle, they would be losing by a huge margin, the way things were going.

"We have to focus on the Berserkers fighting right now," he decided. "Any flaming sails?"

'None, and none coming soon,' Toothless grunted. 'What _can _we do?'

"Go after some of the more active targets, I guess," Maour decided. It was risky, but if anyone was going to sink the ships that weren't distracted and probably wouldn't be at any point in the near future, it would be him and Toothless. They were the best fliers. Attacking a whole group of undistracted ships wasn't doable, but a lone ship might be.

'Okay…' Toothless looked to the left, and then to the right, surveying the battlefield. 'Where is Dagur?'

"No clue." The same went for Astrid. He hoped neither of them was on the currently untouchable portion of the fleet heading for the Isle, but it seemed likely. Probably Astrid, she was more obsessed with spiting him and destroying his home, specifically.

'Let's find him,' Toothless decided, flying lower. 'We can take him out.'

"Good plan." That was something they could do, something they would have to do at some point.

'And look for Einfari,' Toothless added as they descended. 'She and Heather might have seen where he is.'

"Right there," he said, directing Toothless' attention to one of the ships below. He had already noticed Einfari and Heather fighting aboard one of the Berserker ships, aiding an invading group of Meatheads who were obviously flaunting the order to hold back.

Toothless carefully angled in towards the ship and dropped down behind the allied lines.

"Here to help?" Heather asked, drawing an arrow and aiming.

'We are taking a breather,' Einfari panted from atop the ship's cabin. 'I'm out of shots.'

"Toothless still has a couple of shots, and we were thinking of using them where they would make the most difference," Maour said quickly. "Any idea where we could find Dagur or Astrid?"

'He retreated to one of his ships,' Einfari replied. 'The one with two catapults and men lining the sides, back just out of reach. We wanted to go after him, but again, I have no fire, and he isn't distracted.'

'Astrid?' Toothless pressed.

'Your guess is as good as mine.' Einfari slipped off the cabin and landed heavily on her paws. She sported a few cuts around her front paws, but otherwise seemed unhurt. 'I am going to jump back in and help them finish this.'

"Warn me first," Heather remarked, staring at the bloody conflict covering the opposite end of the ship. "This is all going bad."

'We're doing what we can,' Toothless huffed. 'You do not mind that we're going after Dagur?'

"It's war, kill him if you can," Heather said firmly. "I don't care who does it so long as it's done."

'If we can,' Toothless murmured to Maour as they took off. 'What's the plan for dealing with the archers?'

"I'm thinking fake dive them three times, pretend to fly away, and then fake dive again," Maour proposed, improvising the least predictable pattern he could come up with. "The fifth dive will be real, fire at Dagur, or the archers if you can't see him." If they could clear off enough of the enemy's defensive firepower, another quick firing pass would be safe.

'Sounds good,' Toothless agreed, winging his way toward another part of the battlefield. 'I see the ship she means. Near the edge, pulling away from the Meatheads.'

With that direction and a quick glimpse through Toothless' eyes, Maour saw it too. It was a ragged ship with a hole in the deck, one of those the rock-dropping run had struck but not sunk, and the two catapults were distinct, as was the black, misshapen helmet Dagur wore. He stood apart from his archers, just far enough away that any strike against him would fail to hit them, and vice versa, but that wasn't a problem, not with this plan. Maour had already assumed Dagur wouldn't be stupid enough to stand in the middle of his men in this sort of fight. "Ready," he said, crouching in the saddle.

The first false dive was loud and dramatic, Toothless screeching angrily as they fell, in a way that Maour was fairly certain none of the Berserkers would recognize as distinct. It _was _different, not the usual prelude to a blast because Toothless wasn't building up a shot, but in the heat of battle it was more than close enough.

A hail of arrows and one boulder rose to meet them, and Toothless pulled up short before circling around. The archers and crossbowmen bent to reload, and Maour could hear a distant yell that sounded distinctly unhinged. Dagur waved an ax at them.

The second dive run elicited even more of a response than the first, both catapults firing, and again an angry yell from Dagur. Toothless flew faster, and began his third dive run immediately, dropping into dangerous territory before they could all reload, and flying back out to a safe range just as they fired.

'Can we do this until they have nothing to shoot?' Toothless asked as he feigned retreating for a long moment.

"Maybe for the catapults, but not the archers." They could have upwards of sixty bolts each, if they had come well prepared, and that was assuming this ship didn't have any more in storage. That would take most of the day, and the battle would be all but over by then. Not to mention, Dagur's ship was heading straight for an in-progress battle between three ships, two Meathead and one Berserker. If he reached that fight, he'd get lost in the conflict, and things would get much harder for them.

'I'll stick to the plan, then,' Toothless rumbled, abruptly turning around and diving for a fourth time. The response he got was hesitant, slower and less thorough, fewer arrows wasted. They were beginning to expect each new dive was another fakeout.

Toothless launched into the fifth dive, the real one, without hesitating, following the pattern he had established. Then he kept moving, diving steeply and spiraling as he went to throw off archers, charging up a real shot, not a fake shriek-

Maour _felt_ the moment things went wrong; Toothless dipped to one side to avoid something, throwing off their flight path, and didn't pull up from the dive they had committed to. The tailfin bucked against his foot, and Toothless flapped frantically, slowing them down, but not enough.

The impact rocked Maour in the saddle, and he only barely kept his face from slamming into Toothless' neck. His brother buckled under him, having landed on his paws and stomach.

Neither of them had taken the landing well, but Maour sat up and grabbed for his scythe as soon as he could breathe again, despite the ache he could feel all throughout his body.

"Talk about a dramatic entrance!" Dagur enthused from somewhere nearby. They had landed _on _one of the catapults, Maour noticed as Toothless stumbled off of the wreckage. Chunks of wood and metal connecting pieces were scattered with every movement.

"Or it would have been," Dagur added thoughtfully, crossing Maour's line of sight, a safe distance away at the moment, "if you hadn't faked us out so many times first. Takes all the fun out of it." He shook his head, jostling the macabre, poorly-crafted helmet he wore to the point where it looked like it might fall off.

Maour kept his eyes off the disgusting helmet and subtly tested the tailfin, flicking it to hopefully signal Toothless that _now _would be a good time to fly away. The archers were all holding their fire for some reason, but that didn't make them any less of a threat.

But in flicking the tailfin, he felt an uneven jolt of resistance, and in the foreboding silence, heard fabric rip on something. The tailfin was broken, and until he could replace it with one in Toothless' saddlebag, that meant they were grounded.

'Get him talking,' Toothless groaned, shaking his head. 'Play for time.'

"Had to get close enough to make the entrance at all," Maour quipped. He didn't know what he was stalling _for_, aside from the thin hope that someone else would see their predicament and come to the rescue. That probably wasn't going to happen; everyone else was tied up in their own individual fights. There were no Night Furies surveilling the battlefield from above at the moment.

"Yeah, but you did it in such a cowardly way!" Dagur exclaimed. "Make the dragon dive in and take the arrows, smash it through the deck, and jump off at the last second, that's what _I _would have done."

"It actually doesn't work that way," Maour countered. "You can't jump off a diving dragon and expect to survive the impact, you're still moving at the same speed." He slid his scythe around to rest on his lap, and slowly pulled his boot free of the prosthetic, just in case. This was going to get violent as soon as Dagur's mood flipped to anything other than his current amiable interest in dramatics, and he would be ready when that happened.

"Fine, whatever," Dagur conceded. "So, ready to die?"

Toothless bared his teeth and snarled.

"Perfect! Come at me!" Dagur crouched, holding his ax with the blade at chest height. "I've already killed one Night Fury today!"

"And you want to up your personal score?" Maour asked, his voice deceptively level. If the Berserkers were led by someone sane, he and Toothless would already be dead, filled with arrows the moment they crashed, but Dagur was in charge. There was _something _that held him back from doing exactly that.

"Duh," Dagur grunted.

"Sir!" Savage called out from the far end of the ship. "This is a bad plan. We can just fill them with arrows!"

"Shut up and look around, Savage," Dagur shot back, not taking his eyes off of Toothless. "We're winning. I can afford to have some fun."

"Two on one," Maour proposed, leaping at the chance. "If we win, we get to leave."

"No way," Dagur laughed scornfully. "You win, my men fill you with arrows. Either die now, or die fighting me. If you're lucky, die having bested me!"

'Still better than dying now,' Toothless growled. 'Maybe someone will intervene.'

"Fighting is the only choice, really," Maour agreed. He dismounted, seeing no benefit in weighing Toothless down and limiting his own mobility. For the moment, all they could do was fight. Maybe if they took Dagur hostage…

That was a plan. He felt better about the terrible situation they had stupidly flown into, having a way out in mind. Stall, take Dagur hostage, or if all else failed at least take him out of the fight.

Dagur stalked forward in a way that could only be described as predatory, slowly closing the distance between them, smiling eerily.

"No cheating, either," Dagur called out as he walked.

'I'll cheat my wings off if I figure out how,' Toothless snarled. 'Maour, I'm not going to use my last shot unless I have to. We want to stall, not kill him instantly.'

Maour nodded, glad they were on the same page, and leveled his scythe at Dagur, pointing the outside edge of a blade in his direction. Toothless bared his teeth threateningly and stepped out to the side.

"Don't try circling around me," Dagur warned. "It's too bad Astrid isn't here. I would have loved to fight you two on two."

"Where is she?" Maour asked.

"Somewhere important," Dagur sang out, his voice rising eerily for no apparent reason. Between that and the butchered half-skull he wore as a helmet, he looked and sounded far more unhinged than usual.

"And you aren't?" Maour asked, stepping to the side. He and Toothless were slowly spreading out, catching Dagur between them. The archers lining the far sides of the ship made him nervous, and in circling around he was putting his back to them, but there was nothing he could do about that.

"I _like _being the leader of the violent distraction force," Dagur remarked. He was turning to follow Maour for the moment, and occasionally glancing over at Toothless. "She got the boring end of the stick. Also, I said no circling. Penalty shot!"

Maour ducked the moment he caught Dagur's meaning, and Dagur took that moment to rush him, chopping his ax downward the moment he was in range. Maour chose not to block, instead throwing himself to the side and lashing out with his scythe without looking.

Toothless came up behind Dagur and slashed a pawful of razor-sharp claws at his head, raking the garish helmet he wore and tearing it off. Dagur rolled forward the moment his helmet pulled free, slapped the blade of Maour's scythe into the deck, and spun to face them both.

"You knocked my hat off," he complained petulantly, his tone totally at odds with the circumstances. "Penalty shot!"

Maour ignored the intended distraction this time and swung his scythe forward-

Then the wind was knocked out of him as something impacted his leg from behind, hitting the back of his knee and making his leg buckle. He lost his grip on his scythe, and only Toothless' enraged roar and full-on attack stopped Dagur from taking advantage of his weakness.

'They fire on us when he says that!' Toothless snarled as he forced Dagur away. Maour could now see a crossbow bolt jutting out of his hind leg. His own leg was fine, but only because the bolt had glanced off of his scale armor. That wouldn't happen with a more direct hit.

"I'd call that cheating," Maour said angrily. He had hoped Dagur was crazy in a way that meant fighting fair, not having his men shoot whenever he felt like it.

"It's _fun_," Dagur panted smugly. "I get to fight a Night Fury and a coward, and my men get to take shots whenever you annoy me."

"Such honor," Maour deadpanned.

"Who gives a flying yak about honor?" Dagur snorted. "Shut up and fight!"

* * *

Toothless flexed his back paw, taking advantage of the momentary lapse in combat. It hurt; there was an arrow lodged in exactly the wrong place. He was effectively fighting with three paws and a trashed tailfin.

Dagur said something and leveled his ax at Maour, and Toothless jumped forward, not trusting himself to walk without showing weakness. The ax flipped around to swing at his face, but he had expected that and stopped short, swatting the flat of the blade out of the air.

A snap of teeth right in front of Dagur drew his attention, allowing Toothless to jab forward with a paw and rake claws across Dagur's legs, though he couldn't take the time or pressure to dig deep, past the leather and into flesh. Every time he struck, he had to force himself not to go for the killing blow, and then was forced away by the blade he just couldn't keep out of the way long enough. Not being able to use both paws or walk normally wasn't helping, and as great as Maour was at fighting, they were both hampered by not _wanting _Dagur dead. Fighting to keep the enemy alive and one's own hide intact was far harder than just fighting to kill.

Given the option, Toothless wouldn't have taken this fight at all. He had agreed to a risky dive attack, not a brawl with archers at his back and arrows paining his every move. He hopped back, carefully holding his injured paw up so as to not scrape the arrow on the ground, and let Maour hook the ax with his scythe.

Dagur grabbed the haft of the scythe and pulled forward, unhooking the two weapons and yanking Maour toward him.

Toothless moved forward without thought, stubbed the arrow in his paw on something, and almost buckled under the pain. His patience for this stupid fight was all but gone, and he shrieked at Dagur so loudly that the man took his eyes off of Maour-

And Maour, taking advantage of the distraction, drove his knee into Dagur's stomach and yanked both their weapons away in a single move. Scythe and ax tumbled to the deck in a clatter nobody heard over his screech, and he flicked his ruined false tailfin over the weapons, catching them and dragging them away from Dagur's reach.

"Penalty!" Dagur yelled, slipping away from Maour before either he or Toothless could do anything.

Toothless hopped in front of Maour and snarled, but it was too late. Two arrows struck him in the side, and one sunk into Maour's right arm.

"Ax me!" Dagur commanded, and one of his men threw him another ax. He grinned maliciously at them, but his wild eyes and heaving chest betrayed his anger. "One win for you idiots," he sneered. "Now get up and fight me!"

Toothless snarled, his mind racing. He had no flight, so they had no way out, and the roar he had already let loose was the best he could do when it came to hopefully attracting the attention of allies. He had already fired all but one of his shots, and one wasn't going to be enough to stop anything, not when they could assume Dagur's death would lead to a hail of arrows. They were trapped in this sadistic, unfair, unending fight, and they were both hurt. Maour was hurt, because Toothless hadn't been able to shield him in time.

"I'm okay," Maour said unconvincingly, an arrow jutting from his upper arm. "You?"

"He's got three arrows in him, idiot," Dagur called out. "Stop tending to your wounds, or I'll have them shoot you again. Real warriors fight through the pain!" He tapped the flat of his ax against his left shoulder pauldron and grimaced at them.

Maour bent down to pick up his scythe, but he hesitated, and Toothless could tell that Dagur saw it. The moment Dagur's expression twisted to a sneer, his mouth opening to deliver another order, Toothless gave up and inhaled deeply.

Disdain turned to alarm as Dagur leaped to the side and then scrabbled backward. Toothless shot a quick blast, his aim unerring, but Dagur had pulled one of his men in front of him. The orderly line of Berserker archers fell into disarray for an all too brief moment-

Toothless found he could fire again, so he did, not even thinking about it. Again, his blast wreaked havoc in the Berserker lines, but Dagur was well hidden behind his own men, and taking to the air to weed him out wasn't an option.

"Kill them if it fires again!" Dagur yelled from somewhere out of sight. Toothless hesitated, instinctively sticking out a wing to cover Maour, and held in his next shot, letting it die away. He couldn't deal with them all, not when the group behind him was entirely unscathed.

"I guess it does understand," Dagur added, stepping out into the open and kicking the scorched bodies that had shielded him. "No more fire, we're fighting man to man here."

'Don't react.'

Toothless managed to turn his startled bark into a mocking noise that hurt his throat, but only barely. 'Einfari?' he asked hopefully. He couldn't see her anywhere, but unless he was going crazy, he could hear her.

No, he decided, not crazy, because Maour was picking up his scythe and hiding a grin. They were both hearing her.

'Keep that group's eyes on you,' Einfari continued. She sounded as if she was very close. 'We are going to thin out the ones behind you.'

Toothless could only think of one way to keep so many eyes on himself without getting shot, so he stalked forward, his side and legs aching every step of the way, and snarled at Dagur.

"Round two!" Dagur yelled, throwing himself forward. Toothless swatted his ax away almost without thought, held back the blast he had brought up by accident, and twisted his body to the side, bringing his tail into play from one side as Maour attacked from the other. Usually he didn't like putting his tail in danger, but the more of himself he had between the Berserkers in front of him and the ones behind him, the better.

Dagur fended off their attacks, baring his teeth in a feral grin of rage, and punched Toothless in the nose. Toothless tried to bite his hand off, but noticed the curved knife Dagur held clenched in his fist just in time and cut the snap short, taking a slash across the nose instead of a blade driven into his mouth.

Maour did his part in keeping Dagur's ax occupied, but at this close range that did as much to keep Toothless from lunging in as anything else, curved blades jerking back and forth in front of him. He pulled his tail back, not willing to lose another fin to their unpredictable struggle, and stood still for long moments as Dagur tried to disengage and do something, though he knew his inaction would seem strange to all watching. So long as they didn't figure out that something else was going on, that was fine.

'When I say go, attack the ones in front of you,' Einfari called out. 'Be ready!'

"Fight me!" Dagur screamed, stabbing at Toothless with his knife while he tried futilely to yank his ax free. Toothless leaned back, avoiding the clumsy blows and waiting for the signal, which only seemed to enrage Dagur further.

"Let go of my ax!" Dagur abruptly yelled, turning his knife against Maour. Maour ducked to one side and twisted his scythe, using the other blade to force Dagur's hand back while still tangling his ax with the front. Dagur couldn't pull without stabbing himself, couldn't shove forward without impaling himself, and couldn't slash without cutting himself. Toothless wished he had enough claws to do something like that for himself.

"Penalty shot!" Dagur yelled, dropping his weapons and jumping back into the small crowd of Berserkers.

'Attack!' Einfari called out.

Toothless fired a small blast at the feet of the Berserkers, and then another two into the crowd. It hurt to leap anywhere with the arrows in his side, but he jumped forward anyway, and then flung his wings out to either side, shoving with all of his strength.

Other Furies swarmed up the sides of the ship, two Eldurs, and tore into the remaining Berserkers. Toothless ignored them for the most part, his eyes on the red-faced, ax-wielding maniac scrambling to get clear. Dagur was yelling something incoherent, but it didn't matter; he was out of people to give orders to.

The sudden assault ended as quickly as it had begun, and there was an abrupt lack of noise aside from the panting of Eldurfjall and Eldurberg, the latter having no rider for some reason. Dagur was standing at the prow of the ship, weapons in hand and a crazed look in his eyes.

'Ship's clear,' Einfari remarked casually. Toothless turned to look at her, and was surprised to see an angry glare in both her eyes and Heather's.

'What?' he asked, confused.

'I thought better of you two,' Einfari said scathingly. 'What were you thinking, coming down here? You were _going _to die!'

"We weren't planning on landing," Maour objected. "A lucky shot forced us out of the sky, and Toothless' tail ripped.' He sounded as surprised as Toothless felt.

'Still stupid,' Einfari complained, but her gaze softened a little.

"But it worked out," Heather countered, looking past Toothless with hard eyes. "Because _someone _really was stupid, having all of his men focus inward instead of watching the sky."

Toothless shuffled to the side to let Einfari and Heather past, and nosed at Maour's arm. 'Does it hurt?' he asked.

"Not as much as three arrows probably do," Maour said, walking around him. "Let me get these out, at least."

'After.' He wanted to see Dagur dealt with first. It wouldn't take long, given the Berserker in question was cornered by four Furies and two riders.

* * *

Einfari glared victoriously at the panicked little human, feeling triumphant and wary, a mix she was sure only her family could contemplate. Maour and Toothless certainly weren't wary right now, murmuring to each other in the back. Sure, they had three dragons between themselves and the only current threat, but still.

"Drop the weapons or die this instant," Heather called out. Surprisingly, Dagur complied, letting his weapons fall and then kicking them behind him, off the ship, for good measure.

'Why are we not attacking?' Eldurfjall asked impatiently.

'It is called savoring the moment,' Einfari snorted. 'Just shut up and look threatening.' She wasn't sure how Heather wanted to approach this, but nothing good ever came of a Myrkur acting out because they were bored.

"You know, I'm glad you're crazy," Heather remarked, staring down at Dagur from Einfari's back. "It makes you stupid."

"I'm not stupid, dear sister of mine," Dagur retorted, his back to the waste-high railing that ran around the ship. He had the gall, or perhaps the insanity-granted confidence, to grin at her. "I took a risk and had some fun."

'Even worse, then,' Einfari said dismissively. She was _glad _he hadn't killed Maour and Toothless the moment he had the chance, but being thankful that the enemy wasn't cunning didn't translate to approving of their moves in the abstract. _She _never would have made the mistake of playing with her prey before snapping its neck, though even in thinking that something felt wrong-

'We shouldn't make the same mistake,' she blurted out, seeing the parallel. 'Heather, do you want to kill him or should I?' This was the exact scenario they had spoken of before the battle began, and the perfect setting to act on it. There would be no Viking witnesses to say they had broken some stupid Viking honor by killing the Chieftain of the enemy instead of taking him prisoner. They weren't going to taunt their prey before leaping for the kill, and they _certainly _weren't going to let the prey go.

"You're still welcome to become a Berserker," Dagur offered, ignorant of his fate being decided. "We're winning, join the winning side!"

"Even if you had _already won_, I'd only join to stab you in the back the moment I got a chance," Heather gritted. "I'm done being chased, done watching people I care about being threatened by you and your _worthless _tribe."

"Low blow," Dagur said lightly. "Come on, don't you feel the blood lust, the desire to win and kill?"

"Not at all," Heather said firmly. "If anything, I'm disgusted by how stupid and obvious you are. Einfari, you can kill him if you want."

'What?' Einfari asked. She had assumed Heather would.

"I don't feel the need to kill," Heather said coldly, her words obviously aimed at Dagur. "Why would I?"

"Disappointing," Dagur sighed, sounding for all the world as if he really was disappointed. Einfari didn't know whether that was her lack of experience in deciphering human sounds or his insanity at work. "But I have one more thing to-"

Even for a Night Fury, Myrkurheili was fast; Einfari barely had time to register the Myrkur's lightning-fast arrival before he was lunging forward and biting down on Dagur's body. He reared on his hind legs, violently shook Dagur's body, and slung him over the side. Something broke, and the bulk of Dagur's body splashed into the water.

'Drown,' Myrkurheili spat viciously, tossing the limb he had ripped off into the water. He glared at the place Dagur had disappeared.

Einfari walked up to the railing and looked down, checking for bubbles. None appeared; there was no sign of Dagur in the water. Even his arm had sank, weighted down by the pauldrons.

'You were being stupid,' Myrkurheili spat, unknowningly turning Einfari's complaint about Maour and Dagur back on her. 'Kill the enemy immediately.'

"We were about to," Heather said.

'Not soon enough.' Myrkurheili snarled and turned away from the railing, glaring at everyone and everything. 'He and his followers killed Eyðileggingu. Every moment they still breathe is one too many."

That same sinking grief from before crystallized in Einfari's gut at those words. She knew now who had died. Myrkureyðileggingu, the oldest dragon in the pack, the only one who had grandchildren. She barely knew him, but her mother spoke well of his enthusiasm and energy in old age, and he was one of them.

"Oh, no," Maour said sadly, sounding as pained as Einfari felt.

'Yes, and I'm going to avenge him by killing them all, one ship at a time,' Myrkurheili gritted angrily. 'If you need me, I'll be helping our humans rip theirs apart, since I can't get at the other ships.' He leaped into the air, almost smacking Eldurberg with a wing, and was off before anyone could respond.

'Eldurberg,' Toothless called out, 'Fishlegs is okay, right?' Einfari could almost see his line of thought, going from death to the conspicuous absence in their midst.

'He's just resting,' Eldurberg confirmed, his ears drooping. 'I don't _think _we lost anyone else.'

'Not yet, but this isn't even close to over,' Einfari growled, hoping to get them into a mindset to keep fighting. 'At least we're half done… Assuming humans can't swim with three limbs?' Dagur had never resurfaced, but that wasn't the same as seeing his dead body.

"Definitely not, but I'm glad we have people watching the shores," Heather replied. "If he washes up there, we'll know. Alive or dead."

'If he washes up alive, we will have to kill him for real.' She was sure they could do that, but it would ruin things with some of the humans, apparently.

'It was mostly Bog Burglars, so I can get Camicazi to do me a favor and 'let' him escape," Heather said quietly. "But if he gets picked up by another Berserker ship…"

'We were going to sink all of those anyway,' Einfari grumbled, seeing her friend's point. They weren't winning this fight as a whole, not as things stood now, and they had to win to ensure Dagur didn't return to bother them another day, to say nothing of Astrid, who was still out there.

'About that…'

Toothless limped into view. 'What are we going to do?' he asked plaintively.

Einfari stared. She was pretty sure Heather was staring too.

'What?' Toothless asked. 'Maour took the saddle off to fix the tailfin more easily. It won't take long.'

"And… he didn't notice anything?" Heather asked incredulously.

'Do I still have an arrow in me?' Toothless shook his wings out and tried to turn and look at his back. 'I don't feel anything.'

"No…" Heather shook in the saddle, a movement Einfari took as held-in laughter. She felt close to laughing herself, out of relief and amusement and more than a hint of confusion.

'What is it, then?' Toothless demanded.

'How much fire do you have left?' Einfari asked instead, wanting to draw out the moment just a little further.

'Some?' he warbled.

'Give me a number.'

Toothless paused, as if thinking. The moment stretched out.

'Enough?' he offered.

She stared at the extremely faint blue glow pulsing behind the scales running along his spine, so faint she could believe Maour hadn't noticed if he was preoccupied. 'Yes, it might just be.'

_**Author's Note: **_**This was originally only the first half of the chapter, but then I got to this point and realized I was less than halfway through the events I needed to cover, with a full 8k words already written. Silly of me to assume I could cover a momentous battle in two chapters, I guess.**


	44. Chapter 44

_**Author's Note**_**: Some small things were adjusted in the last chapter after it came out, as per advice from several sources. Nothing plot-significant was changed, mostly little details to correct tonal issues and close a few small plot holes. Anyway, on with what we're all here for!**

Heather crouched low in the saddle as Einfari took up a place to the right of Toothless and Maour, high above the sea. Eldurberg and Fishlegs were below them, the Myrkur siblings and their riders were covering the other angles…

All of the riders were hunkering down, arranging their weapons on their backs, shifting armor, strapping themselves to the saddle with rarely-used tethers, and generally preparing to weather a violent storm. They had all volunteered for this task, and they knew the risks. They would be serving as Toothless's living shield should the need arise, positioned to take arrows and possibly die in order to keep him in the fight.

Such a risk was necessary, though. Everyone else was out of fire, but something was special about Toothless. A blue glow flickered between his scales, only visible up close, and he claimed he had enough fire to do whatever was needed. He was not glowing nearly as strongly as Togi had, or as the other Night Fury in the old story was said to have, but that didn't seem to affect his access to extra firepower, and they had devised their strategy around that.

Being the only one with fire made him valuable, and the centerpoint of their strategy. Heather hoped he really did have enough fire to do the job. A lot was riding on him, and he didn't _look _all-powerful, glowing faintly but otherwise unremarkable.

'You know I could set you down somewhere safe first.' Einfari offered. 'There's still time.'

"Same to you. You could have gone with the other group." She wasn't going to take that offer. This whole war was partly her fault, and she wasn't about to sit out the most risky part of ending it.

'Let's try this out,' Toothless said hesitantly. 'My left!'

Heather leaned to the left as Einfari did, mostly for her own balance, and the dragons all converged on that side of him. The movement itself wasn't as important as the underlying principle they were testing. Could Toothless command or influence them, like the Night Fury during Togi's captivity, or like Togi might have with Nóttreiði? Such an ability shouldn't be necessary, but it was something they had to determine before flying into danger so that Toothless knew what powers he had at his disposal lest he misuse them out of ignorance.

'Nothing,' Eldurberg reported. His voice was hoarse, though it was a mental voice, and he looked strained, as if he was struggling to hold himself together. Given he and his family had just burned the macabre helmet made out of Eldurvatn's head, he had a right to be shaken, but she hoped he _would _hold it together. Falling apart in the middle of a fight would get someone killed.

'Okay… This time, try to disobey,' Einfari proposed.

"We were born to disobey!" Ruffnut yelled. There was a dark edge to her voice, and she didn't sound quite as cheerful as she had before finding out the Myrkurs had lost one of their own. She was dealing with her loss in a different way than Eldurvatn, and one Heather considered, if not better, than at least safer. Anger was better than horrified grief, at least in the moment.

'Above me!' Toothless ordered.

Einfari dropped below him, and was met by the other Furies. If Heather had wanted, she could have untethered herself and leapt across to one of the Myrkurs. Not that she would; that wasn't the point of all of this.

'I guess I cannot order you around?' Toothless said, sounding confused and relieved. Heather sympathized; she didn't like seemingly arbitrary power that didn't follow consistent rules, or if it did, followed rules they didn't fully understand. That Toothless couldn't control others might be due to a variety of factors, and they didn't know which. Not knowing could come back to bite them later. 'I feel like I am missing something, like I am not doing what I am supposed to,' he admitted, craning his neck to look back at his admittedly dull, intermittent blue glow.

A roar resounded from nearby; the other group was ready.

'We don't need that anyway, all we need is your fire,' Boom offered. 'Let's go trash some ships!'

'Follow closely, stay between him and the target until you hear him preparing to fire, close ranks immediately, don't go where the others aren't distracting!' Einfari called out desperately.

"The Myrkurs _do _follow orders when it's important," Heather murmured, pressing her face to the leather of the saddle as Einfari drifted back to her original position, and the group picked up speed.

'I know,' Einfari hummed. 'See you on the other side of this insanity.'

"See you there." Heather accessed all of Einfari's senses except touch, that only because she wanted to ensure she noticed if she fell out of the saddle, and surveyed the rapidly nearing battlefield through her friend's eyes.

Their allies were still fighting bloody individual battles. Those would be mopped up last of all; they had bigger fish to fry. It was the reinforcements they were targeting now, the Berserkers who had yet to engage for whatever reason. The ones they couldn't normally assault because there were no distractions.

Eight Night Furies assaulted one such ship, swarming around it while staying just out of range, shrieking and howling wildly. Arrows flew up in frantic rains as the Berserkers on that one particular ship panicked, faced with what to them must seem like Ragnorok come early, and for them alone.

This first ship was on the outskirts of the battle, and Toothless dove early, approaching low and from the side facing away from the battle. Einfari and the others followed, forming a moving blockade between him and the ship he was approaching. Einfari flew above him, Elderburg a little in front, and the Myrkurs to his side. Their formation wasn't perfect, they moved relative to one another with every gust of wind or errant flap, but that worked to their advantage.

They neared the ship, Toothless began the telltale shriek, and Einfari swung to the side to allow the Myrkurs up.

They hadn't practiced, they weren't as coordinated as they could be; Toothless' shot barely missed clipping Blast on its way through their hastily disassembled defense. But they were Night Furies, fast and agile in the air, and that was enough. His shot struck just above the waterline of the ship and detonated with far more force than it should have, and water began gushing in-

'Back in formation!' Einfari barked, reminding them that they weren't even close to done. The Myrkurs flew down, Eldurberg forward, and they had formed the blockade again.

That had been easy. They couldn't count on them all being so simple, with not a single arrow fired their way in the confusion. There were more than a dozen Berserker ships left to target, and most were not in such easily approached positions. Most would notice the tactic within a couple of strikes. That was when they'd start taking arrows to protect Toothless, to protect their strongest weapon.

Heather wondered, in the few quiet moments required for the others to flock to the next ship and begin anew their all-out distraction campaign, why they hadn't tried something like this before. Obviously the idea of protecting one dragon at all costs didn't normally apply, but the general concept of swarming a ship with so many just out of range Furies that the enemy couldn't _not _be distracted, while a small strike team flew in to deliver the real blow, seemed sound.

Maybe they hadn't tried this before because it required more than half of their entire pack, all of the fighters, to put themselves very close to immense danger, all to destroy one ship. It was a risky move they couldn't have been confident of pulling off back when few of them even knew how to fight a Berserker warship, and even now, a single mistake could drop a Fury into easy firing range.

The fatigue the Berserkers had to be feeling by now probably also played a part in making this viable; they hadn't kept them all up at night for nothing, and dulled reflexes paired with even duller wits would buy them time before the Berserkers figured out the overall tactic at play.

Added to all of that was probably one less than complimentary factor; Skarpur, Einfari, and the rest of those who planned and strategized might not have thought of something like this until now. The pack's history, as far as Heather knew it, began with captivity and a narrow escape, and then consisted solely of fleeing and hiding before Maour came along. Night Furies they might be, but they weren't hardened warriors. Only Cloey and possibly Toothless could claim that distinction, and they had fought in what sounded like a wildly different sort of fight, one with different morals and priorities governing their actions.

Einfari turned toward another ship, this one far too close to a second warship for comfort, and Heather saw the flock assaulting it. They were closing in rapidly, still close to the water and moving almost as fast as Heather thought Einfari could go for any extended period of time.

Crossbow bolts whistled through the air as they shifted to allow Toothless a clean shot, but nobody called out in pain, and he fired without trouble. The noises of the pack harassing the ship were louder this time, as if they were trying to make up for the dissipating surprise by being too obnoxious to ignore.

'Forward!' Toothless called out, taking the lead of the group long enough to angle directly toward the thick of the ships. The pack was moving to one of the three ships in their path, but only because Toothless was going that way, there wouldn't be enough time to set up the distraction-

But, Heather reasoned, her heart pounding as Einfari pulled her shoulders a bit closer together and flew faster still, doing the Night Fury equivalent of an all-out sprint, there was no time to question orders in the moment, not without breaking the formation and throwing it all into shambles. They just had to trust Toothless, the one making the choices for them all.

The tightly-clustered group flew right between two Berserker ships, one engaged in combat and the other jockeying to get close and join the fight. Arrows shot past, Toothless fired, Boom cried out in pain-

'Fine, back leg,' Boom exclaimed loudly, punctuating her pain with a roar. 'This is great!'

'First blood!' Blast said without his usual enthusiasm. He might have said more, but they were hurtling around again, banking as tightly as they could at that speed to take another pass at the same ship.

Heather wondered whether there was anything unusual going on with how Einfari and the others so easily followed Toothless' lead in such maneuvers. Was it instinct, his power only now coming into play, or just good coordination? She couldn't tell.

Then something pinged off her back, and she was wrenched out of her thoughts and back into the flight on which she was mostly a human shield. Einfari was fine, she hadn't been struck in the wings, but that had been _close_, if it had struck from the right angle-

Einfari jerked in the air, convulsing in pain for a moment. 'Side,' she panted. 'Not deep. I think.'

'We're going in hard,' Toothless roared in response. 'Forward, twist to the left, then around. I'm hitting all five!'

'We're with you!' Berg panted, though there was a strong undertone of disbelief in his mental voice. Heather could scarcely believe it herself, they were outpacing the rest of the pack, taking on all the danger and striking half of the remaining targets in what would be a matter of seconds-

And totally outpacing the Berserker defenses. She saw the logic, she just didn't like it. Einfari flipped over to open a space for Toothless to fire, then flipped back, and then they were jackknifing to the side to avoid a small hail of arrows that would have struck, and the group was in disarray.

That lasted for a heartbeat, maybe two with how fast Heather's own heart was pounding, and then the group was back together, funneled between two hulls. She could hear the ragged breathing of the dragons even over the sounds of the wind and roaring, and Blast was trailing blood in the air behind him, Berg was sporting two arrows in the base of his tail-

Another shot, this one again almost hitting Berg, and then two more, and they were pulling up, out of danger, though they had only struck half the Berserker ships held in reserve.

Heather was _thankful _she was nothing but a passenger and human shield; she couldn't even keep up with all that had happened, and if she was like Maour, a vital part of the flight, she would have gotten them killed with her slow reactions. She didn't know how Maour did it.

'Why did we stop?' Berg asked. 'We have to hit them all!'

"Three of the pack are hurt, not counting any of us,' Einfari said tersely. 'Didn't you see? We hit enough, maybe, and we're taking way too many injuries.'

'We will go ask those who would know,' Toothless decided. 'Maybe our allies think they can win now. We still have to deal with the ones going for the Isle.' He and Maour pulled away, dropping in a dive so steep it seemed that they were falling as much as flying.

Einfari, in the meantime, pulled around to see the rest of the pack. There were two dragons missing from the group, though Heather couldn't tell who.

'They landed,' Einfari said, quelling her worries before they had time to properly form. 'No deaths, just hurt. There is a reason we did not do this to start with.'

"Figured there had to be," Heather gasped. Her breathing still wasn't under control, and her heart had not slowed.

They glided with the others for a few long moments as the pack approached. Heather quickly noticed that Cloey, as Maour called her, was among the missing, and was doubly glad that she was just injured. Toothless and Maour didn't deserve to lose her. Nobody deserved to lose anyone, but she felt especially strongly about them in particular, though she couldn't have said why.

'We did enough!' Toothless roared as he flew up toward the pack again. 'Maour says our allies think they can win this from here, if we stop the other group from attacking from behind.'

'They won't do that,' Einfari growled, looking out at the Berserker fleet, which was closing in on the Isle, and would make landfall very soon if not stopped. 'I hope we can stop them, though.'

"So do I," Heather whispered. She didn't want to see another home burned by reckless, pointless hate, and this was their last chance to stop it. Hopefully the other part of the plan would manage that.

* * *

Astrid stood at the center of a storm of emotions, each more potent than the last, and tried to make a decision despite it all.

The Night Furies were turning the battle, closing the gap between Dagur's forces and their cowardly allies, and she controlled the single largest portion of the fleet. They were not in battle, they had not been attacked since the rock-dropping campaign, and were sailing uncontested toward the lush green island. Toward the target.

But away from the target at the same time. The dragons were fighting to protect their miserable nests, she knew that, there was no other reason for them to still be here when they could fly and hide and make her life harder. The problem was, they weren't losing out there, and they weren't coming anywhere near her so she could kill them.

She sailed untouched though she had expected to be at the center of the battle once the idiots behind the Furies realized the plan. Dagur was supposed to be the quickly-abandoned distraction, not the real fight, though she had of course assured him otherwise in making the plan.

"Another ship down," Gobber reported soberly, lowering his spyglass prosthetic. "I don' know wha's goin' on with 'em, but the fight's gonna be over before we get to the island at this rate."

"Shut up." She gritted her teeth and focused on _not _picking up her ax and driving it into the bearer of bad news; that was acceptable with lesser messengers, but not this one. Not Gobber. She needed Gobber.

She needed control. There was a reason her ax was on the deck by her boots, not in her hand, not swinging for someone's neck. She needed to choose a course of action, one that would serve the hunt, and she needed to do it without falling victim to the failings Dagur had described for her, the ones that necessitated somebody like Gobber in the first place.

She wished the choices for the hunt weren't so hard. It felt like she was being forced to choose between two similar options without knowing which was better, and that bothered her immensely.

She could order her ships, a dozen in total after losing a few to boulder-inflicted damage, to turn around and return to the fray to buy her more time, but that would leave her more vulnerable if the dragons targeted her.

"It's like a swarm o' crows after a battle," Gobber mused, staring at the distant flock of dark dragons. "But wit' more self control. None o' them are takin' any serious hits."

"If they come here we'll destroy them." It wasn't a question, and she was confident that it wasn't overconfidence. Only in the chaos of battle would such a swarm be viable, when ships were isolated and beset from all sides. Her group sailed in tight formation, all weapons on the sky, and no enemy warships would reach them to force them to split their attention.

So long as they remained on their current course, that was. If they turned around she would be sailing them right into the madhouse that the dragons were dominating, and abandoning that advantage the moment the enemy warships were close enough to pose a threat.

"Looks like they're pullin' away for a breather," Gobber reported. "Yer 'usband might lose this one if we don' pitch in somehow."

"He knows what he's doing," she said coldly. Dagur was not on her mind right now, not really. If he lived, so be it, and if he died, all the better for her future plans.

But turning around would send her small fleet right into the fight. There were so many furies up there, waiting to be killed. As much as it killed her to turn her back on such an opportunity, she knew that those dragons were protecting something, their young, and she was on a course to reach the island and hunt down those young. Slaughter them, burn the forest, and then lay in wait for the battle-weary dragons to come back. Or, if the dragons came for them the moment they set foot on the shore, an open battle in which her people would have much less of an advantage.

She was torn, her desire to kill and ruin pulling her both ways, useless as a deciding factor. Her preference as to which she wanted to do kept changing, swinging with every mood, and it was only the fleet's steady forward motion, impossible to change without orders and clarification and a dozen other little things she would have to be fully committed to give, that kept her on a path toward one of those two options. Were is up to her, she would be going nowhere, paralyzed by indecision.

"What works better for us, Gobber?" she asked, giving in to the need to seek advice, though a white-hot rage flew through her at the mere thought of him defying her. It was gone as quickly as it had come, before she could do more than twitch her fingers in the general direction of her ax, but Gobber had come perilously close to being attacked in that moment. "Go back, or stick with the plan?"

"We'll be in the thick of it either way, I reckon," Gobber offered.

"But which is _better_?" she stressed, fighting the urge to do something, anything permanent. Her knuckles were turning white, she was gripping the ship's railing so hard.

"I'd say stick with the plan," Gobber decided, not even noticing her held-back rage, he was so focused on watching the battle. "Yep, looks like they're takin' a break. Must be nice."

"Landfall imminent!" a Berserker yelled from the prow of one of the other ships.

"Give the orders," Astrid decided, leaning on Gobber's decision and not allowing herself to second-guess it. "We're going in hard, following my lead. Everyone will have a torch and oil."

"Aye," Gobber agreed. "Not us, though. We gotta be quick on our feet."

"Not you or me," she agreed. They'd make landfall, forge a path through the forest to the mountain, where any nests would be, and burn the forest behind them. That was the plan, and they were sticking to it… Unless something better came along.

* * *

The crunch of wood on sand made audible Astrid's resolve; there would be no quick retreats. That wasn't just her way, it was the Berserker way when raiding, and it served well here. Her small fleet of warships ran aground on the pristine shore, and gangplanks thumped down immediately afterward.

"They're circlin' up," Gobber said warningly. "Not headin' over 'ere yet, but it won' be long if it'll happen at all."

Astrid ignored him. She'd listen if he announced an incoming strike, but for the moment there was a plan and it had to be carried out. She watched with bloodthirsty anticipation as Berserkers set foot on the dragons' precious island, weapons in their hands and unlit torches strapped to their backs, along with a leather skin of oil.

She briefly thought about whether it was wise to be bringing oil to raid a nest of fire-breathing dragons, but dismissed it as unimportant. At worst, the oil would ensure they didn't have to care for any wounded. It wasn't explosive, just highly flammable, and if a Berserker was getting hit with a blast of fire from a Night Fury, they were as good as dead anyway, oil or not.

Besides, Gobber had approved it, and it would be good for setting the forest on fire. She longed to see it burn, to see Hiccup's face as he lost everything-

"They're comin' this way," Gobber reported more urgently. He yanked his spyglass prosthetic off and hastily joined the flow of Berserkers trooping off their ship, twisting on his knife prosthetic as he did. "Incoming!"

Astrid followed the last of her men off the ship, abandoning it to the dragons. They wouldn't need it; this was it, the hunt at last, and she was planning for success. Dagur would win and come pick them up, if need be. Besides, they'd be keeping the Furies too busy for them to burn empty ships. Too busy, and soon too _dead._

She found herself laughing madly, though the situation didn't call for that at all. None of the Berserkers around even noticed, or if they did, they were inured to such things.

Crossbows pointed to the sky, and the hardened warriors all around her braced for impact. She crouched behind one, keeping in mind that there was no point in looking fearless if a stray shot hit her head-on and killed her immediately, before she could even begin to hunt.

No fire came. There were no shrieks of impending doom, no fancy maneuvers. She looked to the sky and saw nothing, and thought for a moment that the Furies had fled to the mountain, to hold them off there.

"What're they _doing_?" the Berserker she was using as a shield asked in an awed whisper.

Upon looking out from behind her cover, she saw a group of Night Furies standing on the shore some distance away, within sight but not within range of either crossbow bolts or arrows. One paced in front of the others, reflecting light oddly, giving off the illusion that it was faintly glowing blue from within.

"Waitin'," another Berserker supplied, as the dragons failed to charge forward, or retreat, or do anything at all. Astrid could see Hiccup there, standing within the disorganized ranks of dark dragons, and she could see others, too. Two lanky forms, the twins. One bulky body, much more like a real Viking than any of the others.

The connection was easy to make; she had already been shocked to find the missing Thorstons within the ranks of the enemy, and they had disappeared with Fishlegs. All of which made the final human figure Heather.

He had brought people into his deceitful trickery, he had spread his cowardly ways. The rage running through her was at a peak, unwavering, and she held it back with a very tenuous grip on herself. She had been holding on for so long, it felt like ages since her weapons had tasted dragon blood, and now they were there, taunting her.

"We charge, or we stick to the plan," she murmured. Again, a choice where the right answer wasn't clear, a straight line of attack into what could be an ambush, or a plan that brought them into the forest and put them in a tough spot. She didn't know which to pick.

"Charge," Gobber advised, shaking his hook. "Charge!"

The Berserkers around her looked to her, uncertain, but those who couldn't see her assumed he was speaking for her and broke into a run, holding only loosely to their formations, shouldering or even dropping crossbows in favor of swords and spears-

"Charge!" she echoed, giving herself over to her trustworthy aid's judgement. Those around her belatedly joined the charge, providing her with cover even as they ran across the hot sand.

They were slower than she would have liked, hindered by the shifting sands and their own exhaustion, but nonetheless, it was a glorious charge. She-

The sound of an explosion preceded a plume of sand spraying up into the air, ahead of the charging Berserkers. Upwards of a dozen more shots followed, creating a haze of quickly dropping sand and far less quickly dispersing dust, the particles fine enough to hang in the air and create a haze.

Moments later, the screaming started. Astrid was still running when it began, stuck behind all these ungainly sacks of meat, much to her rage. She couldn't see what was happening, but she could guess for all the good it did her. A haze of sand and dust to hinder vision, followed by an all-out assault by dragons who could move faster than one would assume. The battle had joined, and she wasn't even in it yet!

She and her small group of bodyguards ran into the drifting haze of dust, and her eyes almost immediately began to water. She blinked rapidly and stumbled on a small dune, falling behind even more. The anger filling her was becoming harder and harder to control with every little obstacle she faced, every unavoidable thing holding her back from the fight, and she kicked the dune on her way over despite knowing such an act was a waste of precious energy.

A Night Fury, the edges blurred by the dissipating cloud, leaped across her field of view, dragging a Berserker with it. Said Berserker was almost certainly already dead, but that didn't stop the Fury from using his body to tangle up the spears of a trio who had managed to stay together-

Another blast impacted the sand between her and the scene, and she cried out in pain as sand filled her eyes, flung directly into her face. There was no fighting _that_, and she spent precious moments blinking, the little grains causing her to tear up.

She swung her new ax wildly while she was blinded, hit something solid, and viciously drove in the weapon, striking forward with all her might. Just as the body at the end of her ax twitched and lay still, one of her eyes became, if not clear and certainly not irritated, at least clear enough to see through her tears.

One of her own men lay at her feet. She growled in frustration and rubbed her hand against her face. The battle was still going, the dust cloud was only an irritation, her fatigue a distraction. She had dragons to kill, and she was going to kill them, even if Thor himself told her to stand down.

She stood straight and tried to get a sense of what was going on around her, through foggy vision and overwhelming frustration. The sand sloped up in all directions; she had stumbled forward into the depression created by the blast that had blinded her. All around her, death and blood reigned, dragons darting through the chaos. Explosions rang in her ears at regular intervals, peppering open spaces to throw up new plumes of sand and grit.

Berserker bodies littered the flatter spans of sand, bleeding out, ripped open, or motionless despite no visible reason, likely broken on the inside. A Night Fury-

She stumbled forward, bloodlust clouding her mind the moment she understood that the Night Fury lying among the fallen to her right was not yet dead, just wounded. A kill, any kill, was worth the effort, worth it all, worth the massacre this fight was rapidly turning into. The fight itself was drifting toward the tideline as her men desperately tried to get somewhere that wouldn't allow the enemy to use fire so readily, the dragons were all there, but this one was injured and she was here to execute it.

She got within three paces of the heaving body, its back to her, and she lifted her ax silently. Her hands trembled, her body quaked with anticipation-

No sign was given, no noise was made, but its ears perked up and it rolled over, exposing a mangled front paw and a mouth filled with a building blue glow.

Astrid dove for cover and didn't quite make it. The shot struck her in the back, blowing her forward and over a dune. She hit the ground and rolled to a hard stop, her blood rushing in her ears…

But she was not dead. The shot she had been struck with was small, weak, and she could hear the Night Fury coughing violently on the other side of the dune. Not a full shot, even, a desperate last-ditch effort. She _knew _some dragons could do that, it had happened before, but usually it was just a pathetic flicker, not a concussive impact akin to being punched by Stoick the Vast.

Something ached violently in her back, but she found she could roll to her knees and vomit. That accomplished, she sought out her ax and crawled to the crest of the sand dune.

Her hopes of another shot at the injured dragon were dashed by the second Fury standing beside it, glaring out at the battlefield suspiciously. Its flat, spade-shaped head let it see both her and the battle, though it didn't notice her peeking above the hill.

It likely assumed she was dead. She would _love _to disabuse it of that notion, but she needed a method of approach that didn't involve sprinting across open territory, which was a terrible plan so long as she lacked bodies to put between herself and it.

The injured Fury struggled to stand, and with help from the other, a shoulder pushing up their side, began to limp away from the fight, down the shore.

Astrid looked at the still wary, very much alert and only minimally distracted Night Fury helping the injured, and then at the messy bloodbath playing out by the water. She made her choice and began crawling between dunes, hiding from sight until she could get close to the main battle…

The battle that her side was losing. She could see it now, the way the dragons fought, the weariness and exhaustion and disorientation weighing her men down, the lack of reinforcements, the lack of clear sight to even line up a target from afar… If they hadn't rushed in, if they had taken a measured advance, things would have been different, but mayhem favored the dragons, who were faster and needed only a battlefield clear of arrows to lay waste to men.

They were losing, and somewhere in that mayhem was Hiccup, laughing at her defeat. She had come here to ruin all he had, to destroy the Night Furies, to stomp on eggs and burn the island to the ground, and she was _failing_. The hunt was _failing._

Not acceptable! She shuffled around and turned her back on the dying Berserkers she had led this far, stopping only to scavenge a torch and oil pouch from the back of an upper torso of a Berserker. They might win the battle, but she would get what she had come for, and he would be left with as close to nothing as she could manage.

She reached the treeline without being noticed, and continued to crawl forward until she could crouch behind a particularly thick tree and stand, unseen by any-

A presence moved beside her, coming from elsewhere in the forest, not the shore, and she swung her ax.

"Oy!" Gobber hissed, leaping back with a spryness that defied his age. "It's me!"

"Don't get close," she warned, her entire body shaking with adrenaline. She knew her anger, her rage, and if he got within reach she would swing on the first whim that crossed her mind, trusted advisor or not. She still trusted him, but he would die if he came within reach.

"Sorry," Gobber grunted. "Where we goin'?"

"What were you doing here?" she asked suspiciously. He was not a coward, he should be in the thick of the fighting. That was where he would want to be.

"Lookin' for you," he said. "I knew ye'd see this as a lost cause. What are we gonna do now?" He tried to inch closer, and she swung her ax wildly.

"I'm going to kill anything I can reach," she said in way of warning. "We're going to ruin this island. Light this and follow me." She threw the torch and oil pouch at his feet and walked further into the forest without a second thought, her back complaining all the way.

The sounds of a flint striking were audible over the carnage going on behind her, and she laughed to herself, an unhinged giggle that Dagur would have been proud of. Lose the battle, throw away the help, but win the hunt. Burn the forest, find the nest, crush the eggs…

Gobber followed behind, keeping a safe distance. She hoped he had gotten the message; she had far too little control to waste any on keeping him alive if he put himself within reach. She was going to kill _something _the moment the opportunity presented itself.

* * *

Toothless coughed out another shot, sending a blast into the ground, and wished that he understood why he felt as if he was missing something vital. The feeling had not abated and just would not go away no matter how many times he fired, though his throat had gone raw from the many, many ignitions.

Whenever he tried to mentally take stock of how many shots he had left, feeling his chest and the ease with which he could go through the opening stages of firing, he failed to feel anything definite. It was not as if he had his full shot limit so much as he _didn't _have anything to build up. Fire came far too easily, and without the usual feeling of something exiting a pocket behind his chest, like it didn't come from there at all.

Fire wasn't the problem; he was no closer to running out of firepower, he still felt as if he could go until the need was fulfilled, but it felt like he wasn't doing something _else_ entirely. Something important.

"Dust is dying down to the left," Maour observed, his voice a little hoarse. "Look for an opening there."

'I know,' Toothless said shortly. The dust was dying down there because most of the pack was fighting there, taking full advantage of the stupid, unhinged charge the Berserkers had made, and the half-blind mayhem that had followed. As it turned out, his people were _much _more effective on land with enemies who couldn't see properly.

He growled to himself, wondering why he had called them _his _people. It was unnerving, and they _certainly _weren't his if he couldn't even command them like he was supposed to be able to.

At the thought of commanding the feeling of missing something grew. He still didn't understand; the feeling had been there when he tried with all his might to force those around him to comply to his orders, and it hadn't helped.

An opening appeared as someone, he couldn't tell who in the haze, leaped away and engaged a cluster of coughing Berserkers, and he fired, pulling up a shot for what had to be the twentieth time since they had landed on the shore and planned to force the Berserkers to pursue them into the forest.

"Looks like it might finally be wrapping up," Maour said quietly as they watched the fight. They weren't participating because he was a valuable resource keeping the enemy half blind, and unlike a dragon, Maour lacked a transparent inner set of eyelids to endure the dust, or the ability to hold his breath and fight long enough to get anything done before having to dash out for fresh air. Not to mention Maour had taken a hit to his shoulder, though that didn't seem to be affecting him much. Toothless certainly wasn't staying out because of an injury; he felt fine, and the pain in his side from fighting Dagur was ignorable.

It still felt wrong to be standing on the outskirts when they were physically capable of leaping in, no matter the tactical reasons, but they were doing it anyway, and they were helping. He tried to keep that in mind.

'Yes,' Toothless sighed, replying to Maour. He didn't _feel _like things were winding down, but the fight was going solidly in their favor. Nobody had died, though there were some worrying injuries, and the enemy was still very much disorganized and fighting alone, though there were still substantial numbers of them littered across the scarred and bloody beach.

"Hey," Maour exclaimed.

Toothless looked over at him, and saw him pointing at the forest. A wisp of smoke came up from a laughably small fire, a single bush burning next to a tree. The flames licked the bark, but weren't catching yet.

'What is that for?' he asked, confused. There were hundreds of better places to start a real fire, many within eyesight of the burning bush. It was isolated, a little piece of shrubbery next to a lone tree, surrounded by a spit of sand that he vaguely remembered the Myrkurs arranging for some convoluted plot. It would take a long time to spread any further than that one lone tree – if it would spread at all – with the wind as nonexistent as it currently was, little more than a whisper of a breeze.

"Let's go find out, the cloud is doing fine," Maour said.

Toothless nodded in agreement and let Maour situate himself in the saddle. The bush, he saw as he came closer, had been burning for a while. Nobody had noticed, for obvious reasons.

There was also a little thing of metal lying beside the bush. He had seen such a thing before, curved metal attached to a wooden bowl, but he couldn't quite remember where-

"Gobber," Maour reasoned. "That's Gobber's hook prosthetic. He was here, he set the fire, and he wanted us to know."

'So that we understood that he meant it to be ineffective?' Toothless wondered. That didn't seem right.

"I don't know…" Maour said slowly. "But if he set it, he must not think it's safe to stop being a Berserker. Meaning someone was with him. Did you see Astrid in the fight?"

'No,' Toothless snarled, his heart jumping in alarm as Maour's meaning sunk in. 'I did not. She said she would burn our island and crush eggs.'

"It might not be her, but Gobber's with someone who plans on doing something in the forest," Maour reasoned. "Good thing we got everyone out."

'But they will burn the whole forest down!' Toothless objected. One of the reasons they had fought here was to prevent that sort of thing!

"Astrid or just vengeful Berserkers, we know where they'd go. The mountain."

'Let's go intercept them,' Toothless growled.

"After we tell at least one other person," Maour objected. "Going without anyone knowing is asking for trouble."

'Kappi!' Skarpur called out, her mental voice loud though she was not close by, standing just outside the hazy beginnings of the dust cloud. 'You're slacking off!'

'Sorry!' Toothless roared back. He leaped into the air and spotted an open space, firing another blast and remedying the situation before he even reached Skarpur. 'Maour and I got a sign from Gobber, we think there's a group of Berserkers heading for the caves. We're going to stop them.'

'Go, I will follow with help soon,' Skarpur agreed, looking back at the fight, which seemed to be dying down. 'Not immediately, but once this is over. Be careful.'

"We will be," Maour promised.

* * *

Toothless flew above the forest, ready for a fight. He headed directly for the mountain, reasoning that any humans forced to trek through the undergrowth would be too frustrated to circle around it unless they had to. With where the Berserker ships had landed, the mountain on this side of the island hosted the Myrkur side of the caverns, and he found himself heading almost directly toward their entrance.

"If they're looking for eggs, the cave is going to be the obvious first place to check," Maour mused as they flew. "It's even at ground level, so no climbing."

'I could have blasted them off the mountain if they tried to climb,' Toothless growled. He just wanted this to be over with.

He brought them in to land in the clearing in front of the Myrkur entrance, which proved clear of enemies.

"Now what?" Maour wondered aloud.

A faint noise in the forest answered him, like a branch being stepped on nearby. Toothless flinched, alerted by the noise, and bared his teeth. He wasn't going to fire around here, not when he wanted to stop the forest from burning down, not start it himself-

An oversized hammer hurtled out of the forest from the side, and he reared back to let it pass in front of him. A familiar battlecry rang out as Astrid charged, stumbling over shrubbery, followed by a mostly weaponless Gobber, who waved a prosthetic with a small blade.

"Careful, they might not be alone, try not to hurt Gobber," Maour whispered.

'Stay on my back,' Toothless retorted. He felt more comfortable without having to look out for Maour.

"Why?" Maour asked, but there was no time to answer. Toothless snarled at the duo and ran forward, closing the distance in a heartbeat. Astrid rolled to the side-

A wing out to the _other _side knocked Gobber on his large behind, leaving him with an excuse to sit out the next few moments of the fight. Toothless spun to face Astrid.

Astrid, who was slipping into the cave entrance, disappearing around the first corner. Going into an only barely lit cave.

"She's goin' after eggs and little ones," Gobber said in a low voice from where he sat. "Ye got any in there?"

"You know me, Gobber," Maour replied quietly. "No way. They're all nowhere near here."

"Ah, good," Gobber sighed. "Gonna smoke 'er out?"

'Yes,' Toothless growled. 'Maour, you can get off now.' Keeping Maour safe in a simple fight was one thing, but this would be a little bit tricky. He was going to flush Astrid out, but Maour, being smaller and thus more maneuverable in confined spaces, would do better on his feet.

"You know, we _could _just leave her in there until the pack comes to help," Maour offered. It didn't _look _like he wanted to do that, despite the offer. His scythe was held in steady hands, and his eyes were cold.

'We started this, we end it,' Toothless snarled, stalking up to the cave entrance. Astrid was theirs, the enemy _they _had made, and it felt right that they were going to take her down.

"She's not in 'er right mind," Gobber called out as they approached the cave. "Don' take anythin' for granted."

"I don't plan to let her start talking," Maour agreed. "What will you do?"

"Sit around 'ere unless somethin' else comes along," Gobber offered. "Keep watch in case she gets by you."

"There are four exits, but yeah, good plan," Maour agreed. "Let's go, Toothless. I'm right behind you."

'I wish she had gone into our section of the caves,' Toothless said silently as he crept into the dark, narrow corridor. He wouldn't like even the idea that she had entered their home, but at least he knew those caves. He'd never had reason to set foot in the Myrkurs' domain before today, and thus didn't know the exact layout. It was a branching path that led to the central chamber, with enough space for all the Myrkurs and possible future additions to their family, but that was all he knew.

The feeling of missing something was still strong, even now, where no ability he could remember from the story or Togi's account could possibly help. Here, he was no leader, had no subjects to command, and fire was not likely to be useful, but still, it felt like he could be doing more, like he was staring right at something and not seeing it.

Toothless ignored that feeling as best he could, and tried to concentrate on this hunt. One crazed human in unfamiliar territory, hindered by the lack of light aside from softly glowing moss denoting the general shape of the cave. Unlike in the Svartur section of the caves, the moss grew wildly, carpeting all but a few random patches of stone, and giving a fuzzy quality to even the sharpest of edges.

He crept forward, his claws and teeth ready, and reached the first opening in the cave system. It was a two-way split in the path, one leading to his left and the other to his right. Astrid was nowhere in sight.

'Stick behind me,' Toothless requested. He knew it would be more efficient to check both paths at once by splitting up, but that felt like a very bad idea for reasons he couldn't fully explain. Maour had to stay with him, just in case.

There was no discernable difference between left and right pathways, so Toothless took the right on a whim. He moved at a pace he would have found painfully slow in any other scenario, placing each paw with deliberate caution, his eyes always on the pathway ahead.

The tunnel curved out to the right and then back to the left. An archway became visible ahead, what looked like a deliberately blasted chamber. The moss had grown in on it, but not entirely, betraying its newness in patches of black that were being slowly enveloped by the moss.

Toothless halted just in front of the arch. A blast sent into the chamber beyond would work best if Astrid was in there, but if she wasn't it might give away their presence.

But she had to know they were pursuing, so that didn't matter. He inhaled and fired into the archway. The moment his shot landed was marked by a loud concussive noise and a flash of light. An instant later, he leaped into the chamber and spun around, ready with another shot.

Aside from a smouldering pile of cloth in one corner, there was nothing there. Maour followed him in and stamped out the flames, looking as tense as Toothless felt.

One chamber down… And an unknown amount of chambers to go. Toothless crept back out into the passageway and continued forward. There was another opening to his left almost immediately, this one too twisted to fire into with any accuracy, but he shot into it anyway. There was no reaction, though he couldn't see all the way in.

He was coming to expect the lack of Astrid. She wouldn't hide, she would be moving forward to kill, or at least to pursue the vulnerable dragons and eggs she thought were hidden somewhere within. She'd be further in, not here.

That in mind, he continued forward at a faster pace, and passed what he thought might be the other end of the left-facing passageway with only a cursory glance, expecting to see nothing. Sure enough, she wasn't there either.

Toothless kept moving. His tail was to the opening when he heard it.

A minute noise, a harsh, ragged exhalation, something that would never come from Maour but was right behind them, right where Maour would be.

Toothless turned to see Astrid, behind Maour, emerging from the opening with her ax already swinging. He tried to bark a warning, his eyes fixed on Maour, knowing he couldn't shoot when Maour was in the way-

The feeling of missing something rose up and attached itself to his unvocalized, pure _need _to warn Maour, to protect him, and he felt himself reaching out in a familiar way, though it would do nothing, and in the process _not _barking a warning as he intended, silently-

Toothless stumbled, his legs suddenly boneless, but he saw himself stand still, felt Astrid throw herself right over him in a lunge, saw but did not feel her ax strike his head at an odd angle as she stumbled over his own prone form-

* * *

Maour had no clue what had just happened, why he had stumbled and felt out of control for a split second, and he knew he had no time to think about it anyway. Toothless was unconscious, his blue glow gone, the connection snapped, and Astrid was reeling back, lifting her ax for another strike.

He wasn't fast enough to strike at her, but he managed to get his scythe up and hook her elbow with the inside of the blade. She whirled, scraped her bone armguards against the side of the narrow corridor, and yanked on his scythe so hard he almost lost it, his recently bandaged arrow wound and bruised knuckles aching as he held on.

There were no words in the heartbeat it took both of them to adjust to their new circumstances; only a mad glint in her eyes and a growl from him, though it was low and she didn't hear it. He tried to swing with his scythe, only to get the blade caught on the mossy wall.

Astrid took that as an opportunity to slash at his neck, but he ducked and yanked his scythe free in the same movement, turning it to stab at her like a spear with a peculiar tip. A strand of moss, ripped from the wall and hanging from the blade, flung off and hit her in the face as she blocked with the haft of her ax.

Maour, aware that he had to keep on the offensive to keep her mind _off _of Toothless, who was defenseless not a step behind her, didn't hesitate in scraping his blade down the ax handle and slashing across her fingers. She cried out and pulled back, before turning her pained cry into a scream of rage and smashing his scythe down to the floor.

He went with the motion rather than fighting it and swung the other end of his scythe around to counter her maddened charge, striking the blade of her ax and knocking it clean out of her hands.

Her ax struck the wall with a muted thump, and she struck him with a bloody clenched fist, aiming for his eyes and missing as her momentum carried her to the side, her hand skimming his head, glancing off his ear.

Maour yanked his scythe in and pulled his knee up at the same time, dragging her closer and jabbing her in the stomach with the same move. She grabbed at the haft of his scythe, and he let her have it, taking the opportunity to slam an armored elbow into her nose without even thinking about it, the motion an obvious follow-up in such a desperate, close-quarters fight. He felt her nose crunch under his arm, and she fell to the ground, grasping for her ax, still with one hand on his scythe to prevent him from swinging it at her.

He stepped on the blade of her ax with one foot, shifted his weight, and kicked her knee with the other. She grunted gutturally and yanked-

Maour fell flat on his back and lost his grip on his scythe. Astrid too fell back, holding both weapons. He was quicker to get to his feet, there was something wrong with her knee, something that slowed her as she rose, but she held both weapons.

She smiled maniacally at him and scrambled backward, over Toothless' prone form, intentionally dragging his scythe across Toothless' side and back, opening a shallow, intermittent gash along his length.

Maour _knew _it was dangerous to try and get at her while she had Toothless between them, but he didn't care. He ran forward, unarmed, and jumped onto Toothless' back, landing on his saddle.

Astrid swung at him, but she was slow and didn't have a handle on how his scythe was balanced, and the blade went high. He ducked it and rolled forward.

But she still had her ax, and he felt the bite of it digging into his shoulder, cleaving through the multiple layers of scales and digging into him, most but not all of its momentum already spent.

He yelled something incoherent and grabbed at her injured hand, wrenching it off her ax, which dangled loosely from his armor, stuck. She pulled his scythe back, but he was expecting that and lurched to the side, pinning it to the wall.

Astrid let go of his scythe and grabbed her ax, yanking it free with her uninjured hand. She took a few shaky, lopsided steps back, favoring her injured leg, and glared at him, her expression that of pure malicious glee, despite her injuries.

"You fight like a dirty coward," she spat in a high, singsong voice. Her hand oozed blood, shedding a slow, steady stream on the mossy floor. He felt a wetness spreading from his shoulder, undoubtedly on its way to adding his own blood to the mix. The pain was there too, strangely dull and ignorable.

"Fine by me," he retorted, bringing his scythe around to point at her once more, and charging forward. Now _he _was between her and Toothless, and he fully intended to drive her as far away as possible while they fought.

They clashed in a tightly-compressed swing of blades. Her strikes were less hindered than his, being made with a smaller weapon, but he had the advantage of distance and kept her just out of reach. They tangled their blades together once more, her using that to push closer, and him pushing her away-

Until she got close enough. He let go of his scythe with both hands, stepped back, braced himself, and struck out with both hands balled tightly into fists.

Astrid all but threw herself into his punch, her weapon still tangled and useless, and he slammed her broken nose so hard his arms rattled with the impact. She fell to the ground screaming.

He leaned forward to strike again-

A searing pain flashed through his left foot, and it was his turn to scream. She had driven the pointed top of her ax down through his boot, into his foot and from the feel of it, right out the bottom. He doubled over despite himself.

"Ha," she mumbled gutturally, crawling away. She stood and sneered, her face a broken, twisted mockery of what it once had been. "You lose… Suffer…"

With that, much to his surprise, she turned and ran, an awkward limping gait carrying her further into the cavern.

He groaned and braced himself to yank the ax out of his boot. She had left, but the fight wasn't over, and she was in worse shape than him, all things considered.

But he didn't have just himself to worry about. Toothless was still out cold behind him, bleeding heavily from the gouge she had carved in his back. She would be back, there was no way she would just leave like that. Not when there was an injured Night Fury right here.

* * *

Astrid's body was afire, every part of herself screaming with agony. Her face was a near-blinding mess of pain and blood, and her knee felt _wrong_ in a way she had no words for, as if Maour had knocked it loose but not broken it, and it was now floating free under her skin. Her good hand clutched empty air, and her bad hand bled all over the place. She couldn't feel the tips of several of her fingers.

Still, she pressed forward, driven by the hunt. She had resolved to destroy and kill all Hiccup cared for before she ended him, that was the reason she fled, not because he had won. No, she still had eggs to smash and infants to slaughter and old dragons to put to the spear, an island to burn, a species to eradicate. Maour would live to see that, she had promised him as much.

So she pressed forward, though her weak body was failing her, seeking the vulnerable that _had _to be here. These caves housed dragons, they stank of it, and somewhere within-

She passed into a large open space, tall and only speckled in the moss that had lit her way, and stopped short, momentarily at a loss. She had a moment to think, Hiccup would not follow, he was too cowardly and she had hurt the Night Fury with him, but she could not waste time. Where were the Night Furies?

As if answering her question, a pair of grey eyes appeared in the dark, low to the ground and slitted pupils, the picture of fear. They didn't move, either to attack or to flee.

She chuckled, her voice a nasally ruin of its former self, blood dripping down the back of her throat and causing her to cough throughout her laugh. Her hands were empty, she was unarmed, but she would kill it anyway. Finally-

An agonizing pain erupted in her back and all the way through her chest, the tip of a knife pushing at her tunic. She sagged, her body held up by the knife and the fading strength in her good leg, nothing more.

"That's what ye get for trustin' me," Gobber whispered in her ear. "Stabbed in the back like ye did Stoick."


	45. Chapter 45

Maour limped into the tavern on Mahelmetan, looked around, and upon not seeing the man he meant to meet, claimed a familiar spot to wait. He knew this tavern; he'd met the Ingermans here, and the twins' mother. The former were still on the island, having moved in. He would have to mention that.

'Isn't the funeral beginning soon?' Toothless asked. He was stuck on the Isle of Night until the gouges on his back healed, and he was camping in Maour's senses to escape the pain and boredom. 'I want to at least see that, and don't forget we have to talk to Togi.'

"I know," Maour murmured, seemingly to himself. The bartender looked up at the noise, saw nobody demanding his attention, and looked back down at the mug he was polishing. "We've got time, though we might miss the start if he's any later."

"Oy," a rough voice exclaimed from right behind him "I'm right on time! I said sunset, sun's still up." Gobber circled around the table and slid into the seat on the other side.

"You might be confusing the moon and the sun," Maour joked. "Planning on being late to the big funeral, too?"

"I'm not goin'," Gobber said seriously. "Too many good men lost, and I didn' really do enough to save 'em."

"You did more than most," Maour retorted. He was still fuzzy on the details of what, exactly, Gobber had done. By the time he and Toothless had limped into the central cavern, all they saw was Gobber's knife prosthetic in Astrid's cold, dead body, and Skarpur purring smugly. In the ensuing rush to get them to Eldurhjarta, Maour hadn't even been able to ask where Gobber had gone afterward.

"Doesn't feel like it," Gobber muttered. One of the barmaids passed by, but he waved his hook dismissively and declined anything to drink. "Sure, I got 'er, but I took too long about it. Gainin' 'er trust, gettin' into the Berserkers… I coulda cut 'er in half back on Berk, and Snotlout woulda thanked me. No need to go to all this trouble."

"But you helped with the war, too. You gave us advanced warning when they were coming for the Isle…" Maour leaned in. "By the way, how did Astrid know?"

"Way she told it, she overheard Heather talkin' to one o' the dragons before she attacked," Gobber explained. "You'd know better than me where and when that might o' happened."

'Heather is not going to take that well,' Toothless murmured. 'And it isn't even the only bad news you have to give her.'

Maour winced, thinking of what Camicazi had told him earlier that day. "Yeah, she's not going to be happy," he said, thinking of both pieces of news.

"Eh, things happen," Gobber offered. "Anyway, if that was my only contribution, I'd be downright ashamed, but it ain't. I also ordered that last suicide charge on the beach."

"That was you?" Maour smiled, though it was probably a cold smile, given what they were talking about. It was hard to feel good about death and destruction, even in retrospect. "We did wonder whether she had lost her mind… even more."

"Nah, I did that, and she followed along. What were you lot goin' to do if we did the sensible thing?" he asked.

"Wing it," Maour said. "Lure them into the woods, hunt them down… Something like that." Skarpur hadn't been clear about the details of her plans for the final confrontation on the Isle past explaining the general concepts. Luckily, Gobber had handed them something much more simple.

"Huntin'," Gobber snorted. "Some hunt. Ye know, she didn't kill a single Night Fury. Ever."

"While Dagur got two," Maour said darkly. "It is ironic." Sad, painfully pointless death, but ironic if one could look past that.

"Aye," Gobber murmured. They both fell silent for a long moment.

"How did things go down once we left you in front of the cave?" Maour asked. "That's the only thing I'm still not clear on."

"Yer dragon friend didn't tell you?"

"It's been a hectic week." Between sending their allies away, dealing with all the flotsam washing up on the shore, the multitude of injuries, trivial and serious, _and _Fora and Vern on top of everything else, he hadn't had any time to _think _in the last week, let alone follow up hanging threads. He'd barely had time to cobble together usable crutches for himself, and he needed them to _walk_.

"Well, I sat around for a bit, then the grey-eyed one landed right by me and made to rip me limb from limb," Gobber recounted, absently running the tip of his hook along the table's grooves. "I yelled somethin' about you and my name, and Astrid bein' in the caves, and it decided to take me along to check another entrance. I don' know if it understood what was goin' on or not, really."

"She definitely did," Maour assured him. Of course, Skarpur would have entered the caves from a different angle to try and trap Astrid, and of course she would have brought the questionable but probably safe Viking along, to ensure he didn't try anything sneaky. "And?"

"We went in, I banged my helmet on three different walls, and then Astrid stumbled into a big open space," Gobber said. "The dragon lured 'er in with its eyes, and I snuck around the back and finished what she started." He sighed heavily. "That's one down, at least. Don't know if the other's worth the trouble."

"Snotlout?" Maour asked.

'I say he is worth the trouble,' Toothless offered. 'Also, will it be bad if you and Von miss the funeral ceremony entirely?'

"It's not a huge deal, they don't care if we're there at all," Maour muttered to Toothless.

"Eh?" Gobber asked, leaning forward.

"Snotlout's not a big deal," Maour offered, saying what he thought about Gobber's original question. "Astrid led, he followed. If you want to go after him, sure, but I wouldn't." He hadn't even wanted vengeance against Astrid, not for Stoick. All of that was behind him.

"Maybe," Gobber said doubtfully. "I don' really want to go back to Berk, not with it like it is now, and it'd be hard to manage… I got Astrid, maybe that's enough."

"Where will you go now, assuming Snotlout avoids your wrath?" Maour asked. "You know, the Ingermans live here, on Mahelmetan." He would offer a place on the Isle, but he had no idea how that would work, and assumed Gobber would rather live somewhere with other humans, somewhere closer to the normal he knew.

"Here?" Gobber looked around the unusually empty tavern. "Between you and me, I don' really like the attitude around here. I wanna go somewhere my smithin's needed, not something else ta sell."

"The Rockbreakers, maybe?" Maour offered. "They do all sorts of stuff with blacksmithing, you might like living there." They _had _also betrayed his people, but Gobber wouldn't get involved in their politics, he would be going to live on their island, and that treachery was the act of one man, not the entire tribe.

"Maybe…" Gobber shook his head. "I don' know enough about 'em. I'd have to find one tonight."

"And I've got to go attend a funeral, so it sounds like we both need to leave," Maour offered. Gobber's need was the more urgent one; the allied fleet was putting out to sea tomorrow morning.

"That's it, then," Gobber said in a low voice, shoving his chair back and standing. "See you around?"

"Send me a message through Johann when you get wherever you end up." Maour offered a hand to shake, and Gobber pulled him into a rough hug.

"Aye, wherever that is," Gobber agreed. "But if ye fight any more wars, count me out. I think I'm done wit' all of that."

"Hopefully I am too," Maour agreed. He didn't really believe it, but he could hope.

* * *

Heather was entirely certain the Bog Burglars, Meatheads, Waxears, and Rockbreakers had long overstayed their welcome on Mahelmetan.

She empathized with the Mahelmetans, to a degree. Their home had been coopted as a staging ground for a war not their own, their island had been attacked, their village had almost been raided despite the pledges to defend it…

But now the war was over, and of the five tribes Mahelmetans had been forced to host, four would be leaving in the morning.

That did, of course, bring its own problems.

"I paid for it, e's tryin' to cheat me," the woman yelled, pointing an accusing finger at a shop owner who was holding a dead chicken in one hand and a butcher's knife in the other.

"She paid for a wing, Thor knows why she wanted one, and then tried to take the whole thing," the shop owner retorted, looking at Heather. "They're leavin' tomorrow, just make her pay for the whole thing. I know ye lot won yer war, there's no need to be skimping now. Make with the plunder and stop wastin' my time."

"It wasn't that kind of war, and I'm more concerned with what actually happened here, not making it all go away," Heather said. She was lying about her motives, she would very much like this to just go away, but if she sided with him-

"This'll go away when I get what I paid for, no less," the woman yelled back. "I'm a Bog Burglar, if I'd wanted to steal it, you'd not have caught me!"

"Yer just gettin' sloppy, that's all," the man sneered. "Maybe I'll spread the word. The Bog Burglars have lost their touch!"

"You'll wake up to find you've been stolen out of house and home and left naked in the street," the Bog Burglar woman threatened. "Nobody trash talks us. You'd have the whole tribe after you."

"Yer leavin'," he sneered.

"But we're in town one more night," she shot back.

"Both of you, stop it," Heather said in her most no-nonsense voice, acutely aware of the size difference between her and them.

The Bog Burglar stepped back, and the shop owner lowered his knife.

Luckily, size wasn't quite as big a deal when there was a Night Fury lurking on a nearby rooftop, adding weight to her words with an appropriate noise whenever she spoke. In this case, a snarl that had everyone else on the street quickly finding other places to be.

"I don't know which of you is in the wrong, and I don't really care," Heather said evenly. "How about you give her back what she did pay, she takes _none _of the chicken, and she can go find someone else to sell her what she wants?" She could bring this fight to their respective chieftains, but she was tired of mediating and had somewhere far more important to be. If she hadn't literally stumbled across this brawl on her way through the village, she wouldn't have gotten involved.

Both of them seemed to find that agreeable; the exchange was made with no complaints, and scarcely another word spoken. Heather half expected the Bog Burglar to raise a stink about getting back exactly what she had paid, but that didn't happen, and the two scurried away like rats once they were done.

'Is it me,' Einfari asked from the rooftop, 'or have we gained their respect since the battle?'

"Our allies have been telling war stories for a week, probably in every tavern on the island, and _they _saw what you guys can do when things aren't stacked against you," Heather murmured as she continued on her way toward the docks. "That covers both sides, so yes, I bet they have." So much of the war up to that point had been a lesson on how many ways Night Furies could be disadvantaged under the right circumstances, so it made sense that such an increase in respect would only come now, after the flip side of that had been seen.

'Maybe, but I feel like we should have been getting this respect from the beginning,' Einfari huffed. 'We might be late. Do you still want to walk?'

"Yes, I do." She hadn't expected to be stalled by a random argument, but she had time to spare, and the way things were going, trips into civilization, even just Mahelmetan, were going to be rare after today. She wanted to get the full experience of walking through the village one last time, pick up the general mood.

Said mood was a mixture of apprehension and relief, regardless of whether one was talking about the native Mahelmetans, or those who were only visiting. A huge armada had been destroyed, all was well at the moment…

But then other news had spread. There was an island of Night Furies not three days sailing away. An island that had fought a war to protect itself. Mahelmetan, being their closest neighbors, had a reason to be worried about that. It was probably like waking up one day to see a man standing over one's bed with a huge sword in his hands, smiling kindly. Hugely unnerving and scary, even if that man professed to be peaceful unless provoked.

At least she was on the side of the scary ones, not those being intimidated. It was easier to be okay with such an arrangement when she had a hand in ensuring nothing came of it.

The docks came into view as she turned a corner. The warships were all loaded with fairly-purchased supplies, ready to go in the morning, and their sailors stood on the decks. Most were docked, but a few were out in the water beyond the island, and in the midst of those few sailed a large Meathead warship piled high with weapons and armor broken beyond repair.

The docks were occupied in their entirety, every open space filled with a Bog Burglar, Meathead, Waxear, or the occasional Rockbreaker.

Einfari leaped down into the street and leaned over. 'No walking through that,' she said solemnly. 'Everyone is on a roof over there.'

Heather clambered into the saddle, her body already sore from the long ride to get to Mahelmetan, and spotted the cluster of rooftops that held the Isle of Night's representatives. Maour was there with Von, who had brought him to Mahelmetan in Toothless' stead since Maour's foot and Toothless' back were both injured. On the roof next to them, two Furies were laying side by side, Skarpur and Togi.

Heather felt a smile break out entirely of its own accord as she considered where Togi was. He couldn't have flown there, he wasn't cleared to fly yet, but that he had managed to climb up spoke well of his health. She hadn't seen him since before the final battle, and neither had Einfari. This would be a reunion once the ceremony was over.

Or, she realized as Einfari set down right next to her parents, a reunion right that moment.

'Just in time,' Togi purred, nuzzling Einfari as she sat next to him. 'I think. They are not doing anything now, and they have not yet, but the humans down there are getting antsy, so it must be soon.'

'Or so we have reasoned,' Skarpur laughed. Her tail was wrapped around Togi's.

'Where's Nóttreiði?' Einfari asked.

'The fields,' Skarpur answered. 'Heather, he wanted to see you there once this was over, for some reason. I didn't ask, but he seemed relaxed, so it cannot be anything too serious.'

"Thanks for carrying the message." She was confused as to what Nóttreiði would want with her here and now; they shared a small cave system. She saw him every night.

'Speaking of messages,' Togi said with a low growl, 'I have another for you, one I just got today from a small, obnoxious human thief."

"I got that message too, maybe save that one for after," Maour called out from the other rooftop. He and Von were sitting comfortably, staring out at the ships. "We have to look like we're being respectful."

'Especially since we _do_ respect them,' Skarpur agreed. 'Look, there is a fire out there.'

Heather turned her attention to the distant ships. The one in the middle would be the mass funeral ship, and the pile of armor a representation of the many men and women who fell in the battles against the Berserkers. There had been individual funerals throughout the war, but this one was meant to cover everybody who had fallen in the conflict.

Or, every _human_. She didn't know if the Chieftains had thought of the two Night Furies who died, but she assumed they hadn't. They would have gone through her if they wanted to acquire some material possession to burn in their honor, and she had received no such requests. As far as she knew, nobody had.

That was fine, though. Night Furies had their own ceremonies, far less grand but no less important. She hadn't been invited to attend either funeral on the Isle, as they were family affairs, but she knew they had occurred. They were being mourned, they hadn't been forgotten, and since the Isle had only lost two people, it was impossible that they would forget anyone, unlike this mass ceremony for the uncounted dead humans.

The laden warship drifted away from the others, and arrows of fire peppered it. The docks below were almost silent, the occasional cough or mutter the only thing preventing it from being perfect, a virtual inevitability with that many people in the same place.

The ship lit, having been doused in oil beforehand, and slowly sank. It seemed to both take no time at all, and far too long. The flaming ship lit up the night, being the only source of light out on the water.

Then it was over. There was nothing after that; the moment the last flames sputtered and died as the ship dipped below the waves, the funeral was over. The reality of several allied fleets leaving in the morning immediately reasserted itself down on the docks as several hundred overconfident Vikings all tried to get to wherever they felt they needed to be.

"So, the news," Maour began, raising his voice to be heard over the clamor.

'How bad is it?' Einfari asked. 'Because it sounds like it's bad.'

'Not bad, just… Surprising.' Von shook her head. 'I don't know how to feel about it.'

"Camicazi had a message for me right when we arrived," Maour explained. "Turns out, one of the Meathead ships was pulling up Berserker survivors after the battle, as they always do. You know, to ransom them back to their tribe."

Heather had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Tell me they didn't," she requested.

"Pull Dagur up, down an arm and nearly dead of blood loss even once he started breathing again?" Maour replied. "They definitely did. But they're not going to ransom him back to his tribe."

'I don't trust that,' Skarpur snarled.

'There's more,' Von said.

"The plan, at least from what she told me, is to use him as leverage," Maour explained. "The new Berserker Chieftain, whoever that will be, is going to want him dead to make sure that he doesn't show up and take over again. Mogadon is going to keep him as insurance against the Berserkers. So long as he has Dagur, he has leverage over their current leader."

"We need to get to him and make sure he dies," Heather said coldly. They weren't going through all of this again.

'Not necessarily,' Togi rumbled. 'I think we can afford to leave him there. He is missing an arm, right?'

"Past the elbow, so pretty much the whole thing is gone," Maour confirmed. Von looked worried upon hearing that, though from the way she looked back at Maour, Heather guessed she was more concerned about her brother than the enemy. Luckily, Maour's foot would recover, unlike Dagur's arm.

'So he is physically weak, a captive, and will be killed by his own tribe should he escape,' Togi summarized. 'He is no longer a threat, and we would be striking at an ally if we assassinated him.'

"Only if they knew it was us," Heather objected, calming down. It was true that Dagur had no power now, even if he broke out somehow. 'Do we know for a fact that his people wouldn't welcome him back, regardless of what their new leader thinks?"

'He led them into war against Night Furies and got an entire armada slaughtered,' Togi said gravely. 'All the fighters went with him, and they left their families behind. Almost none of them will be going home. Nobody would want him back when he led so many to die for nothing.'

"It's not like Astrid's around to take over, either," Maour added. "Whoever leads the Berserkers next will have no military might to speak of, and hopefully no desire to go conquering again any time soon."

"Not to mention some of the other tribes will be sure to kick them while they're down," Heather reasoned. It certainly didn't sound like the Berserkers were going to rebound from this easily, if at all. She wouldn't be surprised to hear that someone like the Outcasts were planning to wipe them off the map entirely.

'So it is just unnerving, letting him live,' Einfari summarized. 'Not actually dangerous. We are not making a mistake?'

'I don't think one human is going to make such a difference going forward,' Togi rumbled, looking directly at Heather. 'Are you okay with leaving Dagur to rot in captivity, or should we consider other options?'

"I'm okay with it," Heather decided. It kind of played into the last thing she had said to him, too. She wouldn't kill him, because that was what he would want, insane and bloodthirsty as he was. She was no sister to him, and if it was safe to let him rot in the least honorable way possible, she was more than happy to do that.

'That is the smart decision,' Togi praised. 'Now, can someone help me down off this rooftop? I believe I could just jump-'

'But Eldurhjarta flew all the way out here to check on you, and said not to do that, so you will accept help,' Skarpur said primly, entirely overriding him. Togi's sly purring implied he didn't mind that.

'How can we help?' Einfari asked.

'I only need your mother's assistance, so you and the others can go stand in front of the building and ensure nobody is watching,' Togi said. He grunted in exertion as he crept toward the back of the roof.

'On it!' Einfari deposited the both of them on the mostly empty street in front of the building, which seemed to be a storehouse of some sort. Von and Maour landed beside them.

'Well,' Von hummed, 'it looks like we are drawing attention, not the secret operation going on in the alleyway.'

"That's Aldir," Maour added, looking at the man who was approaching. "Chief, what can we help you with?" he called out.

"Why does he assume Aldir needs help?" Heather muttered to Einfari. She felt she was missing something.

'No clue,' Einfari hissed back.

"We're heading out tomorrow," Aldir responded as he walked into easy speaking range. "I'm glad I caught you here. Have you given any thought to my request?"

"Something to combat Skrill?" Maour responded. "No, honestly. I'll look into it, but no promises."

"It would be a great help… Though maybe just sending some of your most powerful dragons to my island for a while would do it," Aldur mused. "I could have sworn I saw one vastly exceed the shot limit we know of."

"What?" Heather asked, playing dumb. Toothless' glow hadn't been pronounced at all, not like Togi's, so she had thought nobody noticed. It wasn't like the Furies were distinct from a distance, and who would be counting shots in the middle of a battle?

"I'm not sure what you mean," Maour said diplomatically, "but like I said, I'll think about it. It's a long way to send anyone, especially now with the injuries we sustained in the fighting, but if I come up with something I'll probably bring it myself."

"We would be greatly in your debt," Aldir said formally. "Farewell until we next meet, riders and dragons."

"Farewell," Maour said just as formally, replying in kind. None of them said anything until Aldir had turned and was walking away.

"Sounds to me like you just committed to something," Heather whispered to Maour.

"Eh, it's a project," he said casually. "I might come up with something, I might not, no harm done in thinking about it. I'm not sending them _anything _that could be mass produced and used against other kinds of dragons, which makes it much harder."

'That is good caution,' Skarpur remarked, emerging from the alleyway. Togi walked behind her, moving slowly but steadily, and with no visible pain. 'But what if sending anything of yours improves their knowledge of creating things in general?'

"If only it worked like that," Maour said with a smile. "Actually, that's an idea. I could just make it so hideously complicated that anyone who could figure it out and reproduce it would be smart enough to make better weapons on their own _anyway_."

'Sounds hard to do,' Von remarked.

"I've got plenty of time to think," Maour reminded her, pointing to his foot. Heather couldn't see any difference between his boots, but he held it gingerly and put as little weight on it as possible. There were two oddly shaped wooden crutches on the back of Von's saddle, ready to be used if he needed to walk somewhere. "Not much else to do while I heal."

'I understand your struggle,' Togi said gravely. 'If I listen to the Eldurs, I will be here for a while yet, simply because they do not trust my stamina to make it all the way back to the Isle.' He continued walking once he reached their group, and Einfari followed along. Heather considered dismounting, but decided against it once she saw that Maour wasn't getting down to walk. He might feel singled out if he was the only one riding, even if he was doing so for a legitimate reason.

Leaving the village took no time at all, even with Togi's slow gait. The village was surrounded by fields, so one was never very far away, and Nóttreiði, as it turned out, was waiting in the closest one.

'Brother,' Einfari called out as they split off from the group to approach, flying the last stretch, 'what do you have to say that cannot be said in front of everyone?'

'You count as part of everyone,' Nóttreiði rumbled irritably. He had flattened a large patch of grass, presumably out of boredom, and stood in the center, pushing down a patch of tall weeds with his tail. 'I'd like it if you left her here and rejoined our parents. We will come to you once we're done.'

'Will you?' Einfari hummed. 'You know what, sure… Be nice.' She leaned to the side, a clear signal, and Heather took it, dismounting to land on a mass of crushed wildflowers.

'That was easy,' Nóttreiði remarked, watching as his sister quickly departed. 'I wonder what she thinks I have to say.'

"I'm wondering what you have to say," Heather said honestly. She had seen Nóttreiði at least four times in the last two nights, and surely if it was something simple, he would have taken her aside then.

'Nothing momentous,' he assured her. 'I just wanted to say that I don't mind you.'

"Really?" She had been on good terms with him for a while now; that really wasn't a big deal at all.

'Really,' he confirmed. 'But I had something to ask.' He slapped his tail down on the weeds, totally flattening them. 'What do you think of me?'

"Of you?" she asked, stalling for time to arrange her thoughts.

He nodded. Outwardly, he appeared to not care all that much either way, but he wasn't meeting her eyes, even when she stared at him for a long moment.

"You're solemn and confusing," she said, choosing her words carefully. "You _were _always angry and rude, but Einfari kept saying that was not really you. I don't think I have gotten much of a chance to see the real you."

'After I stopped hating you?' he asked in a low voice.

"Awkwardness, instead," she explained. "I don't think that was you either." He didn't know how to treat her, and that meant he was guarded around her.

'But all of that will cast a bad light on whatever else I am,' he said in an odd tone that was almost a question, but not quite, like he wanted to ask but had phrased it as a pessimistic certainty. He was still avoiding her gaze.

"I don't plan to let it," she said honestly. "So I don't think anything of you yet. Do you plan to disappoint me?"

'I am disappointingly boring compared to Einfari, or anyone else in my family,' he said quietly. 'I barely know myself, but I know that much.'

"Boring doesn't bother me. Or you could find ways to be interesting." She refrained from going closer, or making any other overtures; something told her he wasn't looking for that sort of reassurance.

'I can do that.' He looked up, finally meeting her eyes. 'Sorry. For everything. You proved true through it all, and I was not even considered safe to bring to the fight.'

"Apology accepted," she said softly. "You did something worth doing, though. You helped protect the people who needed it most of all." It was not as if he had sat around and done nothing; he had been guarding Joy, and by extension the ship containing three hatchlings. There was no shame in that.

'Thank you.' He growled, shook his head, and rose to his paws, striding forward to close the distance between them. 'I feel like my life was picked up by some all-powerful Myrkur, shaken about, and then dropped out of boredom with no explanation.'

"That's life." She refrained to comment on how he attributed all things insane and maddening to the Myrkurs as a family, more interested in how he was still approaching. She still had the feeling that he didn't want to be touched, not now-

'Let's go find out what our family is guessing about us,' he said quietly, passing her at a slow walk that she would have no trouble keeping up with.

"Lets," she agreed, feeling an unexpected glow of happiness. It was awkward and stilted, but she couldn't deny that his attempt to include her felt _great_. Late in coming, or maybe early, it was hard to say, but great nonetheless.

That was the last one. The Nótts all accepted her, they all liked her, and their home was safe. For the first time in years, she had a home, a family, and nothing on the horizon threatening anyone or anything she cared about.

She wasn't about to drop the attitudes she had adopted on the run, though. That was just how a Nótt thought, and she'd need every bit of cunning she could muster to keep up with the deceptive family she had found herself a part of.

* * *

'That was perhaps the most stilted attempt at an apology and "can we be friends" that I have ever heard, bar none,' Einfari muttered to her mother. They stood apart from Maour, Von, and her father, because those three had something _else _private to talk about, and she felt no shame in filling her mother in on what Heather and her brother were talking about. _Especially _as Heather hadn't told her off. It wasn't eavesdropping if one was allowed to listen.

'Give him credit,' Skarpur said seriously. 'He is finding his paws. That's not easy for him, and I think he is allowed to be confused and moody.'

'You make him sound like a younger adult,' Einfari grumbled. 'In fact, I think you told me that a long while back, when Joy was a hatchling. He _is _older than me, you know.'

'And finally getting around to the growing up he has been putting off,' Skarpur retorted. 'Besides, females mature more quickly than males, that is just a fact of life.'

'Is it a fact the Eldurs would back up with evidence?' Einfari asked.

'Not that kind of fact,' Skarpur laughed.

'What are you having the Eldurs confirm?' Nóttreiði asked as he arrived. Einfari took notice of how close he and Heather were walking, and the subtle grin on Heather's face, and surmised that her friend had easily caught Nóttreiði's intended meaning, no matter how badly he had fumbled explaining himself.

'Something about growing speeds,' Skarpur purred casually.

'Okay…' Nóttreiði looked at Einfari, and she stared steadily back at him until he blinked. 'If you are going to ask, all I am going to say is that I do not mind her, and she doesn't mind me.'

"That's all you need to say," Heather agreed.

'Well, then, I guess now is the time,' Skarpur purred cryptically. 'Heather, if you want, we could adopt you like the Svarturs did Maour. It changes nearly nothing, but it's a nice gesture and Kló would tear me to pieces if I did not offer. It would be something entirely for your sake. Togi and I will not treat you any differently either way.'

"If it's all the same to you, then..." Heather said hesitantly.

Einfari purred supportively and nodded. She didn't know whether Heather wanted this or not, and were it her she would have waited to ask, but she would be happy either way.

"I'd rather not change my name or anything," Heather finished. "If we don't have to do that, then sure."

'That is fine,' Skarpur agreed. 'Your name is yours, I understand not wanting another. You would not be the first of mine to stick with one name and never change it.' She glanced at Nóttreiði.

'I am still waiting to hear a short name I like for myself,' Nóttreiði rumbled. 'Come up with one, and I will happily take to using it.'

'We've been trying for years,' Einfari groaned dramatically. She shared a conspiratorial glance with Heather, certain they had the same thought. It would certainly help things along between Heather and Nóttreiði if she came up with a good name for him, one he liked… And Einfari could be sure to propose all of their ideas, and then credit the successful one to Heather whether it was hers or not.

Or maybe Heather wasn't thinking along those exact lines. It didn't matter; they'd figure it out.

* * *

The sun was just rising as Von set out for home. Her wings beat steadily against the warm air, and she found herself in danger of falling asleep out of mingled tiredness and boredom. Maour was motionless, probably lost in thought, and Heather was lying across her saddle, maybe asleep but definitely not providing any distraction.

'I envy you,' she called across to Einfari, the only person aside from herself who couldn't afford to fall asleep. 'You get to go home to a clean, quiet cave and just _sleep_.' She loved Fora and Vern, she really did, but they made life hard.

'Is there anything I can do?' Einfari asked helpfully. 'You know, you could sleep out in the forest.'

'I know,' Von sighed. 'But I have to be close by in case someone needs something.' Maour had trouble walking, Toothless was stuck on his stomach until the gashes along his side closed up, and her mother had taken two arrows to the stomach, rendering her just as immobile as Toothless while she healed. Von and her father were the only able-bodied Svarturs left, and they had two hatchlings to handle alongside everything else. It was temporary, everyone was slowly getting better, but the next few weeks promised to be exhausting.

'So?' Einfari pressed, flicking her head. 'Help? I could bring fish to your cave at dusk, if that saves you a trip.'

'Sure, that would be nice,' Von agreed. She didn't know whether her parents would be entirely happy to accept charity from another family, but there was no harm in finding out. It would remove one small task from her long list of nightly responsibilities.

'No problem,' Einfari purred. 'I took one little arrow, mom got out without a scratch, and the rest of my family wasn't fighting. We can afford to help everyone else while they recover.'

'Not to mention it's the nice thing to do,' Von teased.

'Well, of course, that goes without saying,' Einfari huffed. 'It is just that nice is good, but nice and easy is very good. Nice, easy, and putting a friend in my debt is better still.'

'It's not a favor if you plan on making me return it later,' Von laughed.

'Sure it is, I can do favors while having ulterior motives.' Einfari leaned to the side and flew closer. 'Maour, are you asleep?'

There was no answer. Von flexed her back, arching midair and shaking the saddle a little, and Maour slumped forward. She wasn't surprised; he wasn't any _less _overworked, helping out however he could, and the pain from having a huge hole put through his foot certainly did not help him rest when he could get sleep. So long as he was secured to the saddle, which he was, she was content to let him rest all the way back to the Isle.

'Heather is definitely asleep, I can tell,' Einfari purred. 'So, we can talk freely. I want you to return my favor by helping me plot.'

'Plot?' Von repeated, feeling her remaining lethargy replaced by interest and mild apprehension. She wasn't clever, not like Einfari or her family, but if Einfari wanted her help she'd give it.

'I figure I'll need someone in your family, and Toothless is okay, but he's not the first person I would pick,' Einfari explained helpfully, completely avoiding the actual explanation Von wanted. 'He would probably give the game away and tell Maour.'

'I might too, if you do not tell me what the game is,' Von threatened. Sometimes, Einfari needed a hint about when she was beating around the bush too much.

'Think about it,' Einfari said, drifting closer. 'You know the other humans on the Isle. Tuffnut, Ruffnut, and Fishlegs. Does Maour spend a lot of time with Ruffnut, or for that matter any of them?"

'No, not really,' Von murmured. She kind of saw where Einfari was going, but wanted her friend to explain it all, just in case there was something she wasn't anticipating.

'Exactly. And I'm sure nobody pushes him to. But he's going to want a mate eventually, and I know who it should be.' She waggled her tail suggestively and tilted her head back, eyeing Heather.

'You think they could be mates?' Von asked.

'I think that they would work better together than any other pairing that could be made, and I _know _making a pairing with another new human would be both dangerous and frustrating,' Einfari said firmly. 'So, help me out. Let's make sure they see each other regularly for any excuse we can come up with. I bet they'll do the rest for us.'

'That does sound like a good idea…' Maour was great, but she could imagine him just ignoring Heather in favor of other things. The two might well never even consider each other if they never saw each other. That seemed like a waste of potential…

But while she felt she knew Maour well, she didn't know much about Heather. 'Would it be a good match?' she asked. 'I mean, you and Toothless would not be.'

'That's different,' Einfari retorted. 'Heather is like me, but less pushy, and Maour is _more _pushy than Toothless when he gets an idea into his head. It would work for them. Besides, if it obviously does not work, we can just stop.'

'Okay, I'm in,' Von decided.

They flew in silence for a few moments. Something occurred to Von.

'You have never done this with me, have you?' she asked suspiciously. That seemed like something Einfari would do.

'Never,' Einfari promised. 'Did you _want _me to?'

Von shook her head. 'No.' She didn't have any prospects; she knew every available male in the pack, and none attracted her in the slightest. 'None of them interest me, and that has not changed.'

'A few of them are changing,' Einfari murmured. 'But that's going to take a while.'

Von considered asking who she was talking about, but she knew odds were that Einfari wouldn't give her a straight answer if it involved anyone in her family.

'This is boring,' Einfari sighed after a moment. 'I can't wait for everything to be back to normal.'

'Is normal possible?' Von asked, voicing a concern she had after walking through a human village without being attacked. 'Everything is changing.'

'Normal, to me, is everyone in my family safe and sound, and something interesting going on in the background,' was the reply. 'We can have normal no matter what else has changed. It just means safety and happiness.'

'I want that too, then,' Von murmured. Thankfully, it seemed they were going to get it.

* * *

Toothless lay on his stomach, concentrating hard. He remembered Maour in danger, the _need _to do something, the inability to act, and tried to feel as he had then.

Nothing.

'No to that too,' he reported.

"Not a flicker," Maour agreed from his spot seated on a dune a short distance away. His charcoal pencil slashed out another little box on his parchment. "Now try that while preparing to fire."

Again, the memories he would rather forget, the attempt to replicate the feeling though everyone was safe and sound now, and in addition slowly building up a shot.

He coughed out the weak blast and snorted as it splashed into the ocean. 'No.'

"I didn't think that would work," Maour admitted. "But Togi was thorough, and I wanted to test everything he mentioned."

'Leaving no stone unturned,' Toothless agreed. He shifted his paws, feeling the warm sand under them. It was good to get out of the cave, and even better that he had a real reason to go. He couldn't be guilty about not watching the hatchlings if they were doing something so important in the meantime. Enjoying the noon sun was just a side benefit of slipping away when everyone else was asleep.

"Okay, last one," Maour said. "Then we can relax. This time, think of the same things, and access every aspect of our link at the same time."

Toothless was more than tired of remembering the desperate battle of a week ago by now, but it was important, so he immersed himself in the memories again and reached out for Maour's senses. Sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell, all were accessed to the fullest.

The sensations were similar but different from what they were trying to replicate, and when he attempted to move Maour's good leg, to kick at the sand, nothing happened. He was observing, not controlling.

In a sense, it was a failure, but he couldn't help feeling that it was success. He didn't _want _to manage it again, he was glad the glow had gone away and could not be recovered. It might be useful, he might need it again, but having it available upon a whim felt like far too much for him to handle, even if it did not come with such troubling abilities.

After a long try, just so that Maour would not ask him to try again, he pulled back and flexed his wing shoulders, feeling the gash along his side weakly protest. 'Nothing at all.'

"Got it." Maour marked the parchment, and then after a moment crumpled it up into a ball. "So, nothing. At least it's consistent with Togi's experiences."

'I am glad,' Toothless murmured, digging his paws deeper into the sand. It was a weight off his back, to be sure there was no trick, no way to call up the power at will. He didn't feel like he was ignoring something important, it wasn't available to him and that was that.

"Glad to tell Togi that we couldn't get anything to happen?" Maour asked. "You know, he really does not seem to mind that both of you have used whatever we're calling it."

'He does not, I do,' Toothless shot back. 'And so long as you do not call it "alpha glow" I don't care.' He felt _awkward _at the sight of Togi, no matter how pleasant the other dragon was, even when looking through Maour's eyes. Like he was posturing in front of Shadow, but worse, because Shadow, being his father, had his trust in a way that Togi never would.

Of course, that awkwardness might not be _him_, like his certainty about how much fire he had was not really him. It wasn't intentional, it wasn't reasoned, and that seemed to point to it having the same cause, the same power they had both used.

"That reminds me, the Eldurs dropped by with some more name suggestions," Maour remarked, pulling another parchment out of a compartment on his armor. "Let's go through them."

'Toss me that ball,' Toothless demanded, 'and we can talk about names. But only until it's gone.' He was glad Maour had intercepted that particular emissary; the Eldurs were far too enthusiastic about his newfound ability. He would rather forget about it.

"Blárleiðtogi," Maour said as he threw the crumpled parchment. It bounced off Toothless' nose and landed in front of him. "Wow, your reflexes are getting rusty."

'Blue leader?' Toothless huffed, deciphering the name as he poked a claw into the ball. 'Way too on the nose.' It also sounded far too much like Togi's full name for his liking.

"Blárljómi, then?"

'Too direct.' Blue glow sounded like a drink the Thorstons would make and then regret making, like they had in the past with fermented fish water and Night Fury spit. Even the memory of that particular experiment made him feel like gagging. He bit down on the parchment ball in an attempt to rid his mouth of the remembered taste.

"How about Eldurengill?"

The taste of parchment and charcoal wasn't exactly pleasant, but it at least took Toothless' mind off of the Thorstons. He crushed the ball against the top of his mouth with his tongue. 'They just wanted to put their name on it with that one.' It wasn't even a good name. "Fire Anger" was ridiculously vague.

"Yeah, I thought so too. Konungdæmið?"

The parchment was turning to mush, so Toothless spit it out again. 'What?' he asked, unsure as to what that meant.

"Let me see, Fishlegs gave me translations but they aren't in line…" Maour ran his hand down the parchment. "Monarchy."

'Like the Queen,' Toothless spat. He hocked up a tiny blast and obliterated the parchment ball. 'No. I don't like any of them.' That hit a little too close to home. It might be _accurate_, what he did was a lot like what the Queen did, but he didn't care about that. He wasn't going to be anything like her, and having what he did named to refer to her would just make him dislike it even more.

"I don't know, it kind of works." Maour frowned. "Hey… Usurper?" He had dropped the light, joking tone he used for the other names.

Toothless considered it. The name poked at something at the back of his mind, a memory buried. The name kind of worked, playing with the idea that this was related to the Queen in some way, but making it sound like he was not akin to her so much as in opposition, turning the power to his own ends, which he liked… But it felt like he had been called as much before-

'Isn't that what the Skrill call us?' he rumbled, catching the reference.

"Yeah, that's where I got it," Maour agreed, sounding troubled. "I wonder if there's a connection."

'There could be.' The Eldurs had already said they didn't know anything useful about the Skrill and their reasons for hating Night Furies to the extent that they instantly went for the kill, and that extended to not knowing why the title of usurper applied. It could be a coincidence, or it could be connected.

'But,' he added, 'that sounds like something for the Eldurs to figure out. You can't ask a Skrill for answers.' Hopefully, Maour wouldn't get that idea back into his head.

"No, I can't, but I can give Aldir something to capture them with," Maour said. "If his tribe had one totally secured, I could ask."

'And get no answer,' Toothless snorted.

"We'll see if it happens. Anyway, about names…" Maour folded Fishlegs' parchment in half. "There are more here, but they're all like the ones I already told you."

'Crumple it up and give it to me,' Toothless requested. 'Let's just not name it, or call it something short and simple like "glow" or "blue".'

"I'm good with calling it 'the glow'," Maour agreed. "Just that, no fancy name, no putting it in your own language?"

'None of that.' Toothless lurched to his paws and walked over, taking the flat parchment from Maour and walking away with it.

"Hey!" Maour protested, picking up his crutches and getting to his feet. "No fair, I can't walk right!"

'I'm injured too!' Toothless called back. 'It's fair!' He circled back around to find that Maour's crutches had both instantly sank in the sand, leaving him sprawling and helpless. 'But it looks like I still win.'

"Laugh it up." Maour swiped at the parchment, but Toothless held it high out of reach. "I'm going to get that back."

'You can try,' Toothless taunted. _This _was much better than pondering things he would much rather leave in the past and forget about. It might all be important later, but for now, they were busy. Busy healing, busy with the hatchlings, busy having fun. Unless it all came crashing down on their shores, he was going to do his best to ignore the lingering questions and whatever their answers might be. At least for now.

_**Author's Note: **_**So ends this particular story. Let me say, for the record, that I hope I **_**never **_**have to rewrite a story while posting it again. Expanding, fine, correcting plot elements, fine, writing from scratch if I must, but **_**totally redoing a very flawed plot**_** while simultaneously posting is really not fun. I would even say it's worse than just writing a story from scratch while posting regularly; at least with that I can assume I'm not being screwed over by my lazy past self **_**too **_**badly.**

**But I **_**think **_**I managed it.**

**Anyway, on to more positive things. This series certainly isn't anywhere near over, and there's more to come in this story. Next week, you'll get a stereotypical teaser chapter here, which will seem to tell you what's coming in the next story while in reality telling you nearly nothing and hiding all the real twists and turns firmly behind its back, as all real teasers should.**

**The week after that, you'll get the first of several 'deleted scenes' chapters. I have an ungodly amount of those, even after pruning the boring ones not worth showing, and I consider them proof of just how much crap my past self left for me to handle.**

**But what about the next story? Well, as it turns out, the next story **_**has **_**a completed rough draft, but that rough draft was written by the same lazy idiot who wrote the rough draft for this one, aka me of about two years ago (fun fact, the first two and a half books were all written in the same summer, one after another). As I just said, I'm not going to rewrite on the fly again, so it'll be a while before **_**Living Freely **_**begins posting in earnest. (Thankfully, that same lazy idiot did **_**not **_**begin writing the story after **_**Living Freely**_**, just plotting it, so I won't have to deal with him in the future after this.)**

**However, to ensure nobody thinks I'm abandoning this series (and to give myself a semi-solid deadline), I will say this. **_**Living Freely **_**will begin posting in early September, 2020, regardless of how much headway I've made on rewriting it between now and then. I might have rewritten the whole thing, or I might have a solid plot revision and the first five chapters, or anything in between, but whatever I have, it's beginning then. The posting frequency will be determined then based on how much I have ready.**

**So, for now, rest easy knowing that a teaser epilogue and five chapters of deleted scenes are coming (the last of the latter will be posted on the same day as **_**Living Freely**_**, so as to ensure everyone gets a reminder when that begins). I'll see you when the next story begins!**


	46. Chapter 46

Waxear village was under siege by Thor himself, and Aldir worried that the answer he had prepared would not be nearly enough. If it was not, his village would be obliterated beyond repair, the worst-case scenario.

Lightning scattered out through the sky like cracks in ice, flowing in seemingly endless waves. A heavy rainstorm pounded his village, hail fell with deadly force, and the sky was bright, a ceaseless stream of white light casting an eerie glow.

Aldir ran through the village, the shield above his head taking the abuse from the hail, his eyes on the dark green storm clouds and flashing light.

He had been warned by his predecessor, prepared, and hardened by the stories. A true strike of the gods, as they called it, had not happened since he was a young child, but everyone knew it was coming, and he had _prepared_.

But he had not prepared for what was happening, because it was not going as it was supposed to.

Where, he wondered as he ran, were the many strikes of lightning claiming lives and destroying huts and scorching the earth itself, setting trees aflame and blasting rock off the mountainside? The lightning was not _supposed _to confine itself to the heavens, whether it was Thor in his wrath or Skrill seeking to reclaim breeding grounds, as Maour had said.

Where were the unearthly floating balls of electricity which moved randomly and passed through walls at will before exploding? Where was the inexplicable tingle in the air, the small shocks, all of the other little things that marked such an event?

He almost thought that this was not Skrill at all, it was so different compared to what he had expected.

Almost.

But there was no thunder. A thousand bolts flashing through and below the clouds, but no rumble over the cacophony of rain and hail. The lack was louder than thunder would be, in its own way. That same lack had heralded the wrath of Thor, and Maour had identified it as a definitive sign of Skrill, for they did not create thunder with their lightning.

Aldir swerved past an abandoned cart, leaped a deep puddle, and ran to a relatively new passage carved into the base of one of the two mountains next to his village. The door was wood and iron interlaced, stronger than the door of his own hut.

He fumbled in his pocket for the key he always carried, since the day his men had completed the construction and what lay beyond. It was excessively precautious, to have such security, but that had been part of the deal, and he was an honorable man.

The rain and hail made it hard to even hold the key once he found it, but he slotted it into the door with an accuracy borne of urgency, his hands steady. They were always steady; he was the best shot in the village.

The door opened with a thud, slammed outward by a timely gust of wind, and he fought to pull it closed after himself. There was nobody outside to leave it open to; everyone had fled to underground shelters hewn into the rock of the island itself.

There was no torch, the passage beyond the door was pitch black, but Aldir put a hand on the wall and moved forward with confidence, climbing the painstakingly carved stairs as fast as he could. His legs burned, and the darkness was stifling, and it seemed to go on forever. The lack of thunder became even more pronounced as he moved upward and deeper into the mountainside, and the sound of the rain and hail died away, leaving a quiet void.

The climb up the mountainside was so long that he had to stop and rest twice despite being in good shape. Carving the passage out of the rock had taken months, even with their skill in removing stone.

All for a good cause. A tower would be vulnerable and prone to failing, but a passage in stone was as unyielding as the island itself. No Skrill would smite his perch down, not with any number of lightning bolts. Such would kill him, destroy his goal, but it would not remove the passage, the way up the mountain from the inside.

Aldir emerged into the fell light of the Skrill's storm, breathed in clean, open air, held his shield up once more as the elements assaulted him, and quickly began to remove the weights holding a tarp in place over a certain object, one Maour had made him pay dearly for, not in valuables, but in precautions and oaths.

Oaths Aldir fully intended to keep, whether or not this weapon actually worked as promised. He had no desire to betray the Isle of Night, both out of personal honor and seeing first hand the devastation they could visit upon him if he were foolish enough to invite it. His tribe had enough problems with powerful dragons as it was.

The device was a strange one, metal and wood combined in complex structures that radiated out from a central shaft, ropes and thinner lines hanging limp, chains connecting pieces in a few places. It was not a sleek, minimalistic device, and he had been told that was part of the many precautions put into place.

First came unhooking certain chains; Aldir found himself referring to etchings on the stone below his feet, though the strobing light and driving weather forced him to squint and double check himself. Without the shorthand runes left to remind himself of the exact order, he would have forgotten.

Chains unhooked and rehooked in other places, he began folding pieces of wood out of the way, moving them on hidden hinges. Finally, he withdrew a chunk of iron from the hollow opening in the now somewhat less obscured center of the device, throwing it aside.

All done just to make it operational in any capacity; anyone unaware of the many steps required to set the device up would be baffled by it, and far more likely to hurt themselves than anyone else. Maour had also mentioned that he had built it with the intent of shattering the ground below upon use, unless that ground was solid rock, so as to prevent it being usable on any sort of ship.

Aldir understood the lengths Maour had gone to, and the reason, but he still thought it was more than a little excessive. Still, beggars could not be choosers, and he knew it worked.

Lightning continued to flash in the sky, and Aldir forced himself to look as close to directly at it as he could manage. His hands were on the clandestine controls, and he could feel the tension under his fingers.

It was already loaded, he could aim it in an instant now that it had been secured correctly and unshackled, and all that was left was to find a target.

The flashing lights provided a backdrop, illuminating the otherwise dark clouds, and as Aldir looked, his eyes narrow and his head aching with the beginnings of a headache, he could see that some of the lightning was flashing in a different pattern. Most followed a single beat, like the hammering heartbeat that came with the rush of battle, but some of it lanced out against that beat, always flowing from one spot.

He followed the erratic strikes back to their source, moving the device with him, and saw the Skrill, a figure so wreathed in lightning that one had to be looking directly at it to even notice it against the rest of the white-hot power filling the air.

"Thor, forgive me," he muttered. It was close enough to fire on, he wouldn't get another shot. He clenched his hands, triggering-

The crack that resounded in front of his face sounded like a small version of the thunder absent from this storm, and he staggered back. A projectile, outlined against the lightning, shot forward and up. It split into a net that whirled through the air with far more speed and accuracy than any net launcher he had ever witnessed, even from the immense range he was firing at. It lacked the heavy weights at the corners that such nets usually had, and it looked _different _in a way he knew was more of Maour's work, and it struck the Skrill straight on, wrapping around the crackling body and throwing it out of the sky.

Some of the lightning stopped, and in its place a wave of pure power blasted out of the falling Skrill, doing nothing at all.

But the air was still crowded with flashes of white-hot light, even as the Skrill he had shot down splashed into the shallows by the docks. It went dark, either dead, unconscious, or for some reason not using its power, but the unholy storm continued.

Aldir found himself rushing for the barrel set into the stone wall of the small outcropping, frantically tearing off the lid and removing a bundle of heavy netting and tiny weights interwoven throughout it. He loaded the net-ball into the device, trembling all the while, and turned back to the sky, searching frantically for the next one. There had to be more than one Skrill.

But this one wasn't so easy to spot. He couldn't see any telltale bodies with lightning wreathing them, not like before, the lightning in the sky was dying down and making it harder to see _anything_-

A shadow flitted across the village, flying low, and Aldir fired the moment he could whip the device around to point that direction. His aim was off, but the dragon flew right into the net, and was struck down, slamming to a halt in the middle of the village.

The sky went mercifully dark, and he lost sight of the second Skrill. There was no more lightning, just steady rain and hail pelting his face and shaking hands.

He allowed himself a few moments to relax, absently gathering up the tarp and pulling it back over the device. He'd have to reset the device with all of its precautions, and that promised to be a long, laborious struggle, unlike removing them had been.

But there was a downed Skrill in the middle of his village, and his people were waiting for word that either the storm has cleared or the Skrill has been shot down. One of those had happened, and he needed to assemble a group of soldiers to kill the Skrill before they escaped.

* * *

A relatively short time later, Aldir was heading a group of heavily armed and armored Vikings, leading them through the streets of the village, toward the second Skrill, which was the more immediate danger. He had avoided going anywhere near it in seeking out the shelters and alerting his most trusted warriors.

Which would explain why he was only now going to see a Skrill up close, despite shooting two out of the sky. He stopped at the edge of a cooper's hut, just out of sight of the main plaza, where the Skrill had hit the ground, and readied a borrowed mace. They would strike hard and fast the moment it showed any signs of life; it was brutal, but so was the destruction of their village that such creatures usually dealt out.

Aldir stepped out into the open, raised his mace, and faltered.

It was not a Skrill that was enmeshed in the heavy ropes and myriad of small weights, hopelessly tangled and motionless in the plaza. He didn't know what Skrill looked like, but he knew they were larger than this…

More importantly, he _did _know what Night Furies looked like, and the dragon he had just shot down was clearly a Night Fury, not a Skrill.

With that realization came confusion, and a moment of doubt about _everything_. Were Skrill really the cause of the storms? Had he actually shot down any Skrill, or had he shot down something else entirely? Had Maour lied about something?

"Tha's a Night Fury," one of his men remarked. They saw his hesitation and stepped out to look for themselves.

"Yes, I know," he said numbly, trying to make sense of it. He _had _shot down a dragon wreathed in lightning, one that directed it, that was the dragon by the docks. He had then assumed there was another, and shot at the first dragon he saw in the sky… In a storm that was different than usual.

"Gods damn it," he exclaimed bitterly. "Go to the docks, secure the Skrill there. I shot down an ally." He had no clue why there was a Fury here, but the Isle of Night must have sent someone. Maybe they were just a messenger who had gotten caught up in the fight upon arriving, struck as much by bad luck and bad timing as by his itchy trigger finger.

Most of his men ran off, driven by the urgency he had put into his orders. A few stayed, but he didn't have the heart to reprimand them.

"It doesn' look so good," one said. "If it's an ally, should we get it out?"

"Carefully," Aldir requested. He led his men forward, out into the plaza, and got a good look at the friend he had ripped from the sky.

His first thought was to check the dragon for a saddle and rider, but thankfully it was bare under the net. His second thought was to wonder about its grey mottling.

His third thought was a realization, one some of his men came to as they began cutting at the net, judging by grunts of amazement.

The Night Fury was covered from head to tail in grey fractal patterns, like the shadows of a tree in the middle of Winter, branching dramatically and covering every inch of it. Some of the grey scars passed over scales, and some under, and there were patches of bare skin that seemed to be missing the scales that should be there. It was scarred more than the most battle-hardened man Aldir had ever seen, and by a fair margin. A man taking such wounds would have died a thousand times over from blood loss alone.

If they were cuts, that was. The pattern reminded him of lightning strikes, and the correlation was obvious, though he didn't know what to make of it. He hadn't seen such a scarred dragon during the battles against the Berserkers, but he knew the Isle had kept some in reserve to defend their elderly and children, and it stood to reason he had not seen them all…

"Still breathin'," came the awed report from the man by its chest as he sawed through ropes with his sword, taking care not to jab the dragon underneath. "Look at all these scars…"

"Most of 'em are puny," another man grunted, roughly tossing a limp and now unrestrained tail aside to reach for the next set of ropes. "'Cept for the ones on the wings, those are alright. Proper ones, those are."

Aldir quickly saw what his men were talking about; while the vast majority of the scars were thin and spindly, the dragon's wings each sported a band of grey around the midsection of the leading edge, a thorough scattering of puncture wounds and slashes healed long ago.

Healed, he noticed, but maybe not healed properly. The wings were crooked around those scars, as if broken and set wrong in addition to all of the other injuries that had left marks, but not wrong enough to prevent flight.

His men continued to work, and soon the dragon was roughly rolled over. Its eyelids drifted open, as if not quite held shut.

Aldir moved forward to help, only briefly looking into pale orange eyes before putting his weight and his belt knife into the task of removing the remains of the net. He had shot down one of the Isle's own dragons with the gift Maour had given, and there would probably be Hel to pay for that. The least he could do was see that it was cared for and taken back to the Isle in the meantime, and this was the first step of that.

The dragon's eyelids drifted closed again as it was rolled onto its side, still very much unconscious.

"Sir, we found the other net, but there's nothing in it!"

Aldir looked to the skies, and upon seeing that there were no Skrill flying down to obliterate him, sighed heavily. At _best_ he had driven his island's recurring tormentor away for the time being. At worst, he had invited retribution, both from them and from the Isle of Night. As it turned out, when he had been thinking of a worst-case scenario, he hadn't been thinking pessimistically _enough._

**_Author's Note:_ A disclaimer: This is not what it looks like, in terms of where I could be going from here. It's also not what your next guess was, or the one after that. I wouldn't call it a teaser if it gave any solid information. That's reserved for the actual prologue, which, I repeat, is coming early September.**


	47. Deleted Scenes I

_**Author's note:**_** There are going to be a **_**lot **_**of these. So many, in fact, that this massive chapter you see here is only the first of five comparably-sized entries, and keep in mind that these aren't **_**all **_**the scenes I elected to rewrite or remove entirely, just the ones I thought showed enough merit that they were worth displaying.**

**As a disclaimer, I should mention that these chapters may vary in quality, a few having been written within the last few months, but most being just under two years old. I didn't want to spend an immense amount of time prettying them up to match my current standards when the whole point of this is to show all of the various failings that made them easier to ignore or rewrite than edit. So, some of these might be a bit rough.**

**In terms of organization, the chapter numbers listed are approximate; some relate to the original draft, and some to the final draft. There's so much crap going on in the differences in numbering and where plot beats happen that organizing it all totally chronologically would be a pain, so it's only **_**mostly **_**chronological.**

**Also, because there are so many of these, there'll be a little mini table of contents at the start of each:**

_**No Threat Here**_** (Chapter 4)**

_**A History **_**(Chapter 5)**

_**Making Sure Everyone Understands the Plan**_** (Chapter 8?)**

_**A Dangerous Lookalike **_**(Chapter 11)**

_**Thrashing Trees**_** (Chapter 11-ish)**

_**Blame the Twins for That **_**(Chapter 14)**

_**Explaining the Situation **_**(Chapter 16)**

_**Change of Heart**_** (Chapter 20)**

* * *

A few minutes later, Nóttskarpur checked in on her two daughters and the human. She saw the scene and laughed quietly. All three of the occupants of that cavern were asleep.

Nóttleiðtogi watched for a while. He turned to her. 'So, now what? We accepted the human for Einfari's sake. Because she seemed so sure, and we didn't know what would happen if the human wasn't accepted after they had already linked.'

Nóttskarpur purred softly and wound her tail around Nóttleiðtogi's. 'Maybe you did. But I truly intend to give her a chance. This just makes me confident she deserves that chance.'

Nóttleiðtogi chuckled quietly. 'Is this about what Svarturkló said earlier?' He hadn't heard their private conversation, but he had a pretty good idea what it had been about.

'She simply pointed out that she knew literally nothing about Maour when she met him, and that he had already linked with her son, without her knowing. The parallels are interesting, are they not?' Nóttskarpur purred. 'Please, if only for me and Einfari, don't let the past blind you. I know you have good reason to hate, but that isn't fair to Heather.'

Nóttleiðtogi growled softly. 'You are right. But I'm not the one who can't let go. Our son will have a hard time even tolerating her, let alone getting to know her. He holds on to past injustices for far too long. Even ones not his own. He might hate humans more than I do, and he is basing that off of what happened to you and me so many years ago. Maour was the first human he's ever even seen up close, and he still tries to stay away from the riders as much as possible. That won't work with Heather.'

Nóttskarpur wasn't worried about that. 'But he can't say no to our littlest one, and she likes Heather. In time, he'll be forced to let go.'

Nóttleiðtogi rumbled uneasily. 'That is true. But he should have his own voice of reason, not rely on another dragon to stop him. He won't be able to function away from her, because he won't ever be able to stop being angry about anything.'

Nóttskarpur whined softly. 'And he knows that. Adult Furies have gone on searches for other families, at one time or another. He never leaves the island. I think deep inside, he knows he can't control himself, and he isn't willing to risk it. Not without a very good reason.'

**Reason for Removal: Seriously? Togi says he's okay with this, and that's that? Yeah, no way. This scene got the ax and rewrite almost immediately once I came back to this story from LV.**

* * *

_**A History **_**(Chapter 5)**

Heather liked Nóttskarpur, who apparently was as easy-going as her youngest daughter was, under the stern exterior presented to outsiders. Nóttleiðtogi was far more difficult, and for the first few days, he seemed to flinch whenever he saw her unexpectedly. But that faded quickly enough, as he seemed to be making a concentrated effort to correct himself. Eventually, she carefully approached the subject. Einfari was playing tag with her little sister in the forest, and Heather was watching. Nóttleiðtogi had been sitting nearby.

Heather spoke first. "Nóttleiðtogi, sir?" She wasn't sure just how informal he would let her be, so she had been erring on the cautious side.

Nóttleiðtogi winced. 'Please don't call me sir. Togi is fine.' Heather didn't know it, but that was something of a big deal. Togi didn't let anyone but family or close friends refer to him as such. But he really couldn't stand being called 'sir' by Heather. Especially because every time Nóttskarpur heard it, she sent Togi a very disapproving look.

Heather blinked. "Togi. Okay. Well, I was just wondering something. Please stop me if this is too personal, but... what happened that makes you flinch every time you see me? I can tell you're trying to stop, and I really appreciate the effort, but I was wondering why." She really hoped he wouldn't take offense at the personal question.

Togi drooped slightly, quite unusual for him. He generally didn't display his emotions as obviously as most Furies did. 'No, it is a fair question.' He glanced over at his daughters, who were out of earshot at the moment. 'Please don't relay any of this to Nótthljóður, she's too young to understand fully. Many years ago, this pack did not exist. There were quite a few Night Furies, and they lived separately. One family here, one there, and so on. This was much further south. I, my brother, and our mother and father lived alone. One day, long ago, a human vessel landed on our small island. We thought nothing of it and made sure to stay away, assuming they would leave. This was about thirty years ago, give or take. My brother was sixteen, and I was twenty. When they didn't leave, but instead set up camp, my brother went in for a closer look. When he didn't come back, we three remaining Furies attacked to save him, or avenge him if he was dead.'

Togi growled at that. 'We were fools. They took us out of the sky with a single arrow each. They were using some sort of poison, one which makes it impossible to even move at high concentrations. They hit my father while he was so high up he broke a wing when he hit the ground, unable to correct himself. Apparently, this particular poison is eventually fatal if one does not receive an antidote. These dragon trappers knew that all too well. So, while they tied me and my mother up, put us with my brother, and gave us the antidote... they just left my father there. A dragon with a broken wing was no use to them. We were forced to listen and watch as he slowly died, the poison eventually reaching his lungs and suffocating him.'

Heather was horrified. But Togi wasn't even close to done.

'They didn't even leave his body there. They took that too, and the only mercy any of us received was that we never saw what they did to it. But we saw the dragon-skin cloaks the dragon trappers sold at their next stop, along with us. Night Fury cloaks. But we were too valuable to just kill. Some Viking bought all three of us, for various purposes. My brother was put into a dragon fighting arena, where he was forced to fight other dragons. He was young and inexperienced in combat, and they eventually put him against a captured Skrill. He died in seconds. My mother had it worse.' Here Togi visibly huddled inwards, reliving the memory.

Heather moved closer. She didn't care that Togi was so aloof usually, this was different. She put a hand on his wing, and didn't move as he flinched, and turned to look at her. "You don't have to keep going. I think I've heard enough."

Togi didn't shake her hand off, but he did shake his head in refusal. 'No, you should hear the rest. This is also the story of how this pack came to be, as the two are intertwined. My part is simply the saddest of the various backstories of the nine founders of this pack.' He braced himself. 'My mother was in a cage across from me. The man in charge had a few ideas of something he might be able to do with each of us. So while he wasted my brother's life in forced combat, he had other plans for us. For my mother, he had the plan of trying to crossbreed Night Furies with other dragons. He didn't seem to know that that just doesn't work. Dragon species are too different. But that didn't stop him from trying with various other types.'

Heather shuddered. That was horrific. She really didn't want Togi to continue talking, but she felt she needed to hear it anyway. "And you?"

Togi sighed. 'He sold me off. Later, I learned from other dragons that my mother, thinking I had been killed like my brother, convinced one of the dragons they put in her cage to kill her, rather than let her suffer there.'

Heather winced. That was even worse. Although, she understood the reasoning behind it.

Togi continued his voice low. 'The one I was sold to was trying to build a dragon army. He was young, insane, and missing an arm. And he was wearing a Night Fury cloak, one I'm fairly sure he got from the trappers. I recognized the pattern of scales.' Here Togi stopped briefly, before continuing. 'He had decided on Night Furies as his dragon of choice, and as such was the one who had hired those same trappers to catch him as many as possible. Buying me pushed his total number of Night Fury captives to eleven. Nóttskarpur, then known as just Skarpur, was one of them. As was every other parent of this pack, along with Myrkureyðileggingu. Out of all of us, only Myrkureyðileggingu and his daughter Myrkurhryðjuverk knew each other. We were all Furies who had been captured, though I was unique in that my entire family was taken, as opposed to a lone Fury being picked off. This madman tried to subjugate us, but none of us would bend, except for one. That one had been there far longer than the rest of us and never spoke. We didn't know what was wrong with him until the madman demonstrated. That one nameless Fury had been completely broken, and obeyed his every command.'

Togi took a deep breath. 'Don't worry, the story gets less depressing from here on out.'

Heather laughed shakily. "I hope so. I don't think it could get much worse."

'The madman had made a mistake. In the hopes of acquiring more Night Furies, he locked us all in the same cage. We mingled, got to know each other... even fell in love, at least a few of us. But none of us was ever going to even think of anything more while in that horrible place. We were in the same cage as the nameless Fury, of course. Most of us couldn't even get him to respond, much less actually speak. He was far older than any of us, and riddled with scars. But there was one female Fury he seemed to like, despite him never speaking. She spent weeks talking to him, trying to snap him out of whatever pit of despair he had sunken into. Eventually, she got him to speak, to respond. He didn't even remember his own name, he had been there so long. Once she got him to respond, he realized what he had done, all that time under the control of a madman.'

Heather was interested now. "What did he do?"

Togi smiled. 'Something I've never seen any other Fury do. He raged, long and hard at first. But eventually, he calmed down. And when the madman had left for the night, he did... something. None of us know what he did, or how. His spines began glowing blue, and soon his entire body, from behind his scales. It looked like he was burning from within, with our blue fire. He fired a single plasma blast, and it destroyed the so-called dragon-proof bars all of us together couldn't break. Then he told us all to leave, to escape, to survive. We all went, fleeing as fast as we could. Except for the Fury he liked, the one that had saved him. She stayed. And together, they laid waste to the madman's entire island. We could hear it as we fled, the massive destruction of his blasts, and the weaker but still audible blasts of hers. We turned back after a while, and circled back around, from above. We called to them, begging them to escape with us while they could. There were so many humans there, and while the unnamed Fury didn't seem to have a shot limit in that state, he couldn't defend from all angles at once. But he wouldn't leave. As we watched, we saw why. He couldn't fly. His wings were so atrophied from years of living in a cage and never being used, they couldn't even support his weight in the air. And the female Fury wouldn't leave him. We watched as they fought, back to back. By the time they were done, the madman's entire island was destroyed. His entire human army, gone. But the madman wasn't dead. He eventually realized what was going on, and faced his former slave. His cloak of Fury scales made plasma blasts useless, and he had brought reinforcements from the portion of his army that he had had with him when the two Furies laid waste to his island. We nine watching flew down to intervene. But the nameless Fury saw us coming and ordered us to leave. This wasn't some simple command. We literally couldn't disobey, no matter how much we wanted to. As we flew away, against our own wills, we heard the death cries of both Furies. Only then we could disobey if we wanted to. But there was no reason to go back.'

Togi growled angrily. 'I only hope they took that madman with them. We were traumatized by our time under Drago, but we wanted to honor the last words of that Fury, and staying together seemed safer anyway. Plus, some of us had formed attachments, and most of us had no idea where our homes were, having been taken from far and wide. So, we flew far to the North and West, away from that madman, and eventually settled on an island. There we made our commitments to each other official, and by the end of that, there were four pairs, and old Myrkureyðileggingu, who had lost his mate before being caught by the trappers and had no desire to find someone else. His only daughter was one of us, so he stayed. We developed a policy of utmost secrecy and moved islands at any human activity whatsoever. We began raising families. By some quirk of luck, each pair of Fury parents happened to have the same general eye color, so that trait has been passed down to all of our children. A few years after that, Myrkurheili found our pack by pure chance and decided to stay. And then, twenty years ago now, Svarturkló disappeared. I think you know the rest.'

Heather looked at Togi, who was still very sad looking. She impulsively reached up and hugged him, being forced to stand on her toes to reach his neck in his seated position.

Togi didn't flinch at all. He simply looked down in bemusement. 'What is this?' He pawed at Heather, pushing her slightly. He sounded amused.

Heather laughed. "It's a thank you. Thank you for even trying to trust me, after the Hel your entire family went through. I don't know how you can even stand the sight of humans after that, even if we aren't all bad."

Togi eyed her. 'I try not to judge one person by the actions of another, and Maour did quite a bit to help me break any lingering prejudices.' He laughed slightly. 'And I seem to have gotten over my flinch reflex. Which is lucky for you. That thing you just did might have gotten you hurt otherwise.'

Heather had dropped back to the ground. She smiled at Togi. "Do you want me to not do that in the future?"

Togi laughed and sat down on all fours. 'Maybe don't leap at me. But I don't mind the rest.' He looked over Heather's shoulder. 'I don't mind you being here. But I'm not the one you need to win over.'

Heather didn't look to see what Togi was staring at. "I wasn't trying to win you over. I just thought I should ask."

Togi rumbled slightly. 'I know.' He pointed at something behind her. 'But you might have to try with him.'

Heather looked over her shoulder. In the distance, she could see Nóttskarpur talking to Nóttreiði. Nóttreiði was glaring at her, ignoring Nóttskarpur. "Believe me, I am trying. He doesn't even talk to me, he just glares, growls, and leaves." Which was true, though it had only been a few days since she could hear all dragons, and therefore actually started trying to talk to Nóttreiði without Einfari acting as a translator.

**Reason for Removal: Again, this was the first draft. I realized, when amping up Togi's issues in **_**Living Vicariously,**_** that his backstory wasn't actually bad enough to justify them. Sure, this is horrible, but it's not personal enough. He lost family, but that shouldn't translate to such an ingrained **_**fear **_**of humans, it should point more toward just hate and resentment. I needed to give him a more personal reason to fear, his own personal human demon. That was the second draft. **_**Then **_**I decided to put it in a more interesting format than 'person telling story', which is what ended up being the final version.**

**Also, you may notice I swapped the genders of the broken Fury in the final version. That had to happen to accommodate why Drago would be wanting Togi and Togi alone broken. To be honest, I wasn't that attached to the first version of the story, so I didn't mind changing such integral details.**

* * *

_**Making Sure Everyone Understands the Plan **_**(Chapter 8?)**

Afterward, they spoke to Fishlegs, Ruffnut, Tuffnut, and their bonds Berg, Boom, and Blast. Of course, the twins had been the hardest to find, so that particular conversation took place right where Toothless and Berg eventually found them. On top of the mountain.

"Why are you guys even up here?" Fishlegs hadn't gotten off of Berg. Who, as a side effect of carrying Fishlegs around, was now quite beefy compared to the other Furies. He was a bit slower, but he could probably lift more than any three Furies combined now. His wing muscles, in particular, looked almost oversized, something both he and Fishlegs were proud of.

"Well, why not? It's cool, flat, and has the best view of the entire island!" Ruffnut was crouching at the edge, next to Boom. Dragon and rider looked eerily similar now. Ruffnut had, after an incident involving her braids on fire, adopted something of an... interesting hairstyle. She had two shoulder-length braids on the edge of the back of her head, and two nub-sized braids in between. Like a Night Fury's ears and face nubs. It looked strange, but she liked it and insisted it helped her think like Boom. She had kept it the natural blond instead of dying it black though, to keep her similarity with her brother. She always carried around a spear now, dyed black with ash rubbed into it repeatedly. She tapped the spear idly on the rock. "What say you, Myrkurs and Thorstons?"

Boom and Blast answered in unison. 'Needs more explosions.' They seemed totally focused on whatever they and the twins had been planning.

Tuffnut disagreed. "No, it needs more fire. Explosions would be too distracting from the spectacle." He hadn't really changed much, except that he had at some point acquired a strangely shiny mace, which he had affectionately dubbed 'Macey' and never let out of his sight. He had also acquired two of the spyglasses Maour had traded to Johann in the past, and tied them together. He hadn't come up with a name for this new contraption, but he insisted it was twice as good as a spyglass.

Toothless had less patience than Maour at the moment, so he asked the obvious question in an attempt to speed the encounter along. 'Do you all know what you need to be doing while we're gone?'

Tuffnut nodded absent-mindedly. 'Patrol island, protect island, keep island secret, yadda yadda yadda. Geez, T, we've lived here for like five years. Don't you think we know by now?"

Ruffnut kicked him. "He means the extra stuff. Make sure our mom and Fish's parents are okay on Mahelmetan, keep an ear out for anything about Berk or the Berserkers, and make sure we do extra-far range patrols to make up for them not being here."

Boom looked at Maour. 'We'll make sure they remember.' While the twins' dragons could be as careless as they could be, protecting their home was the top priority for all of them. Maour was sure they wouldn't forget. That serious side Ruffnut and Tuffnut seemed to have developed had stuck around and showed itself every once in a while. Now was not one of those times, but it reassured Maour to know it still existed on occasion. Fishlegs, on the other hand, was always careful.

"Good luck with Dagur." Fishlegs seemed relieved to not be going on this particular trip. He had had bad experiences with the Berserker in question in the past and understandably seemed to have no desire for a reunion. Ruffnut and Tuffnut, upon being informed that they were totally sane a while ago, now disliked Dagur for 'insanity coming naturally'. They seemed annoyed he didn't have to work for his unhinged plans, instead just using his insanity. Maour didn't feel like questioning that logic.

'Good. We'll see you all in a few months.' Maour knew very well it would be a while. The trip to Berserker island was a bit over two weeks, and they needed to go to Berk afterward. All in all, for him and Toothless it would be at least a month and a half, probably more like two. Not that he minded.

"Try not to blow up the island." With that, Maour and Toothless left the twins and Myrkurs to their plotting. He wasn't worried, because under the Myrkurs' influence Ruffnut and Tuffnut had become far less likely to actually destroy things, instead focusing on shock and awe as a component to their pranks. It was an improvement on many levels.

**Reason for Removal: We got a more subtle recap on how the Twins and Fishlegs have diverged from canon by this point in time back in an earlier chapter, and this felt redundant, especially given they don't come into play at all for a while. This is another case of 'this still happened, just offscreen'.**

* * *

_**A Dangerous Lookalike **_**(Chapter 11)**

Things stayed tense for most of the rest of the trip. Maour had on previous journeys determined a set of uninhabited islands as stopover points, so they met no humans and almost no dragons on the entire journey. Ever since the Queen's defeat, the dragons of the archipelago had scattered, living in isolation as was natural. It almost made the archipelago feel abandoned. Dragons, once a common if dangerous sight the closer one got to the Nest, were now reclusive and mostly solitary creatures.

The only dragon they encountered was on the island they had landed on to rest near the end of the fourth night. Minutes after they landed, a small purple Deadly Nadder approached cautiously. Toothless spoke first, rumbling reassuringly. 'We are only here to rest for the day. We mean no harm.' As he said this, he slowly moved in between the Nadder and Maour, making sure the Nadder couldn't do anything underhanded.

The Nadder was not at all appeased by that. 'Leave now.' It raised its spines menacingly, brandishing its tail. 'Or I'll make you leave myself.'

Maour stared at the hostile dragon. Something was off here. Some dragons might be jerks, and most of them were territorial, but no Nadder would consider themself the equal of three Night Furies in a fight. But this one did, apparently. At least enough to threaten them.

Nóttreiði, of course, decided to take offense at that. 'Or maybe I'll make you leave, instead!' He continued the threat by snarling wordlessly, pacing forward towards the Nadder.

The Nadder jumped back, flaring its wings. It brandished its tail again, almost mockingly. 'You might try. But you wouldn't survive the attempt.'

Now Maour was sure something was seriously wrong here. He examined the Nadder closer. The dragon seemed normal, but its tail spikes were... dripping? Yes, they were. The tail spikes, a fluorescent green in contrast to the purple Nadder, were occasionally dripping something. They almost looked hollow-

And that was when he figured it out. "Nóttreiði, stop! It's poisonous!" He didn't know what kind of dragon this was, but it was not a Nadder. A close relative, maybe. Now that he looked, he saw small differences. A slightly different wing structure, a more elongated beak. They were subtle, but they were there.

The Nadder-like dragon laughed, seemingly unconcerned by all of this. 'Still want to fight?' It took a step towards Nóttreiði. 'Get off my island.' It armed its tail, spikes now ready to throw in an instant.

Einfari, seeing Nóttreiði not move, screamed at him. 'Nóttreiði, stop!' She didn't want her stubborn brother to risk his life for no reason, against a dragon with an unknown poison at its disposal.

Nóttreiði seemed conflicted. His obvious desire to fight was clashing with something. Maybe self-preservation, or maybe his focus on protecting Einfari. Whatever it was, he clearly wasn't quite ready to back down. His anger was driving him on.

Toothless wasn't having that. He had been informed by Nóttskarpur that Nóttreiði had promised to follow his orders on this journey, as a condition for coming. He hadn't intended to use that, but he also wasn't going to let Nóttreiði get himself and maybe others killed. 'Nóttreiði, back down.' When Nóttreiði turned slightly to glare at him, he continued. 'I am ordering you to back down.'

Nóttreiði faltered visibly. He clearly had forgotten about that. After a moment, he abruptly launched himself straight up, his powerful wings lifting him dozens of feet in seconds. He roared in frustration, and possibly humiliation, and forced himself onwards in the direction of the next island, a full night's travel away.

The not-Nadder chuckled darkly. 'Well, off you go. No one messes with poison, especially mine.'

Einfari and Heather immediately set off after Nóttreiði. Maour and Toothless stayed for a moment longer. Toothless snarled. 'We could kill you now. We aren't afraid of you. But we each have something more to protect than ourselves, so we can't risk anything. You got very lucky. Three Night Furies could obliterate you before you had the chance to flinch.' He punctuated that with a lightning-fast plasma blast to a rock a few feet away from the Nadder-like dragon, stunning it for the crucial seconds he needed to take off and get out of tail spike range.

Maour laughed nervously. "That was a bit risky."

Toothless growled, forcing himself to fly faster, to make up for the short head start Einfari and Nóttreiði had. 'That jerk needed to know how close to death he came.'

They caught up to Einfari and Nóttreiði and immediately saw that there was going to be a problem in the near future. They were all flying tired, and there was no way they would last the entire flight to the next island on the list. But Nóttreiði wasn't responding to anything Einfari was saying. He wouldn't even slow down.

Maour pulled out his map. After examining it for a few moments, he groaned. "Great. The only close island is inhabited. Not a big village, but it isn't a big island either." Because bringing Nóttreiði to an island with humans around was a great idea with him in this state.

'I don't think we have a choice. Which way?' Toothless sped up, getting to the front of the group, so he could lead the way.

Maour oriented himself. "Just a bit East of our current direction." He folded the map back up and put it away.

Einfari had heard this. 'Nóttreiði, please follow me.' She abruptly swung out in front of her brother, staying close to him. She edged him towards a somewhat Northeastern path and flew slightly above and in front of him.

Toothless dropped back behind Nóttreiði. 'Good. There's no way he'd follow me anyway.' There was frustration in that. 'Now that I've forced him to do something, he probably won't do anything unless I order him to.'

Maour understood. "Which is why you never did before. Like with the weapon, you could have made him back down then. But you didn't."

Toothless growled. 'For all the good it did. Every time one of us pushes him, he gets worse. And nothing seems to calm him down.' He could almost feel Nóttreiði's rage, barely contained. It really had only been growing this entire trip.

**Reason for Removal: Actually, I quite liked this scene, though it could use some polishing. I had to drop it anyway, because its narrative purpose was preempted by the need to include the Skrill scene, which I realized needed to exist in order for Maour to understand, first hand, just how bad Skrill were, to set up giving Smith a weapon to use against them, which in turn catalyses the third book (and that's just the obvious reason you as readers have already seen play out, there might be others that have yet to develop). This Nadder-esque dragon is basically a poison-based Nadder subspecies. I chose poison because the dragon in this scene needed to be rightfully confident and subtly dangerous.**

* * *

_**Thrashing Trees**_** (Chapter 11-ish)**

With no choice, they were forced to set down in the woods on the other side of the hill. The island really was tiny, and they were less than five minutes away from the village on foot. Not a safe distance at all.

Nóttreiði immediately tore into a few trees in frustration. They all watched silently as the enraged Fury turned several moderately large oaks into kindling in minutes, without using anything other than his claws and teeth. There was no real technique or method, just feral rage. It was slightly terrifying.

But through that entire process, he made almost no noise and never roared. He seemed aware that alerting the nearby village was a bad idea. When he was done...

Heather blinked in shock. She had never seen Nóttreiði do that before, and she was pretty sure he wasn't allowed to trash the forest at home, because she would have found the bare patches of forest by now, he was always so angry. But the surprising part was how much it calmed him down. She had only seen Nótthljóður have that much of a calming effect on him. It was downright strange. He seemed almost normal now. Well, normal for him.

After a few awkward minutes of silence, Toothless spoke. 'I am sorry for ordering you to back down. But I didn't want you dead because some stupid dragon decided killing you with poison was a good idea.' He approached Nóttreiði carefully. 'I promise not to do it again if you promise to listen to us, so it isn't necessary. Please, at least listen to Einfari, if no one else.'

That apparently struck a nerve in Nóttreiði. He recoiled. 'I do! She's the only one here I trust completely. Of course, I listen to her when her judgment isn't clouded!' He glared at Heather, but without much force.

Einfari spoke softly. 'You didn't back there.' She sounded worried. 'You were entirely ready to get yourself killed.' She snarled softly. 'And it isn't my judgment that's clouded, it's yours.'

Nóttreiði whined slightly, dropping his head.

Heather tried not to fall off of Einfari in shock. This was the most... normal... behavior she had ever seen from Nóttreiði. He wasn't angry, he wasn't furious, he wasn't constantly snarling and threatening. What had changed?

Without another word, Nóttreiði jumped into one of the other trees around them and perched carefully on a thick branch. He was facing the village, his back to the rest of them, clearly on watch. He might have seemed back to his normal self, but his tail hung limply, as opposed to the normal angry arch it usually had.

Einfari and Toothless settled in their own trees. On the flight here, they had decided that the dragons would sleep, while the humans kept watch. Maour had argued that he and Heather weren't the ones doing the work of flying, so they didn't need to be as rested. Although, unlike Heather, Maour couldn't sleep in the saddle later, as he had to be awake to operate the tailfin.

Maour stared at Nóttreiði for a while. Eventually, he decided that the dragon was asleep. He turned to Heather. "That was really weird."

**Reason for Removal: I realized, looking at this, that Nóttreiði can't actually calm down yet. He needs to keep the anger simmering, visibly or not, until that fateful attack on a Berserker ship. Calming down isn't in the cards for him. Also, this entire segment was a bit out-of-date after I replaced the poison-Nadder with the whole Skrill chapter.**

* * *

_**Blame the Twins for That **_**(Chapter 14)**

Heather had slowly been coming out of her shock as Dagur talked… and slowly losing any and all control of herself. By now, only the thinnest thread of self-control stopped her from throttling Dagur then and there. She didn't respond verbally, as she wouldn't be able to restrain herself if she did. Luckily, her hands were tied at the wrist, leaving gestures still an option.

Dagur frowned, looking at Heather's hands. "I feel like that means something." He listened as Savage whispered in his ear. "Oh. So that's a no. No big deal. You'll have plenty of time to reconsider." He turned his attention back to Maour. "So, Rider, what do you want for her?"

**Reason for Removal: This one was actually rewritten, not removed, but I wanted to preserve the original. In this universe, in a fit of humor, I've decided that the twins invented the gesture one would otherwise rightfully call anachronistic, aka 'flipping the bird.' Really, the only reason I've removed this is because Heather hasn't had a chance to learn it from them in passing yet. So any further references or uses of 'Thorston-spiting gesture' as the twins named it, are their fault and their influence.**

* * *

_**Explaining the Situation **_**(Chapter 16)**

Camicazi considered that. "Well, does it have to be war?" She stood. "Can we go somewhere I can see you? It stinks, talking to a blob of shadows."

"I can see you just fine. But yes, if you can stand riding Toothless for a few moments." Camicazi was pretty sure he was smirking, though she couldn't see it.

A minute later, they were out on top of a nearby sea stack. They must be really useful for anyone who could fly. Everywhere, safe from ships, and a good place to land. Cami jumped down and turned to face Maour.

"Much better." She thought about what he had said. "I swear on my life and Odin himself to keep everything I hear or learn here secret."

"Why?" Maour looked confused.

"Because I want to help. And I need to know more. First off, what exactly are you protecting?"

"Yes, I do." Maour saw her look of confusion. "Toothless was asking if I really trust you with this." He sat down and gestured for Cami to do the same. "Alright, here's the situation. We have an island. There are some twenty-odd Night Furies living there, and three new ones far too young to survive leaving the island in any way, for the next several years. Two are just eggs right now. There are five humans living there, counting me. Fishlegs, Ruffnut, Tuffnut, and Heather. Heather is a special case."

"How so?" Camicazi was feeling a wave of nostalgia, despite the insanity of what she was hearing. She and Hiccup used to do this when she visited. They'd set some ridiculous goal and plan how to achieve it just like this. The only difference was, now it was for real.

"She's Dagur's long-lost sister. Thing is, she doesn't care. He killed off her entire island in the process of finding her. Dagur knows she's with me, and his armada is already dangerously close to our island, still searching for her."

"Is she trustworthy?"

"As much as I am. She hates Dagur and Berserkers in general. I'm sure of that. Dagur offered her anything she wanted, and she rejected it out of hand, as offensively as possible."

"What's the military situation?"

"Twenty Furies battle-age. Subtract six, or in dire cases four, for the Furies caring for the young ones. Night Fury hatchlings are super-vulnerable. So, in all but the worst situations, fourteen battle-ready Night Furies, five with riders. Some have a lot of experience, and some none at all. An entire fourth of the pack is dedicated to knowledge, which includes tactics, and we have a few strategic planners among the others."

Camicazi whistled. "That's really scary to think about. Fourteen Night Furies." It sounded like something out of a very crazy story told to little kids.

Maour laughed. "Don't discount the riders. We develop certain... abilities over time. Near night-vision, enhanced hearing, sight, smell. Plus the ability to hear and eventually speak to any dragon, and the shared ability between rider and bonded dragon to access each other's senses at any time. To top it off, the dragon can speak to their human bond at any distance, instantly, and using the human's sense of hearing, the human can respond from any distance."

"Any weaknesses?"

"Besides the usual ones? Knocking either of us out cuts the link. We've never actually tested if that removes the enhancements on the human side, but it definitely cuts all the connections. It can be restored if the rider and dragon can touch each other, and make eye contact."

"That's not much of a weakness. How are the humans in combat?"

"Heather is moderately good with an ax. Fishlegs uses a hammer, Ruffnut a spear, and Tuffnut a mace. They're fairly good. And I use my scythe. I'm very good."

Camicazi laughed. "Right. Sorry, but I don't believe that." Hiccup had never been good with any weapon, or really anything that required coordination.

"Believe it." Maour handed the scythe over, in its unlocked position. "It takes skill to not kill yourself with this, let alone use it. I've beaten Fishlegs, Ruffnut, and Tuffnut. At the same time. Not to mention holding my own against Dagur recently, though that wasn't really a fair fight."

Camicazi examined it. He was right, this thing was stupidly dangerous to use, she could tell. "Fine. When I get a new set of knives, I'll test that. For now, I'll assume you're as good as you say. Any other new talents?"

Maour grinned. "Several, actually. I can run through forest faster than any other human I know, and I've gotten very good at being stealthy. Thanks to this guy over here, of course." He patted Toothless, who warbled in appreciation.

Camicazi considered what Maour had said about the abilities of linked dragons and humans. "He understands-"

"Everything. He isn't sure if I should be trusting you so readily, but he trusts me. He also wants you to know that he says not to get any funny ideas about burgling his saddlebags. He'll drag you through the ocean for a mile if you do. I've agreed to help him do that if necessary."

Toothless growled, and then smiled, as widely and disturbingly as possible. Disturbingly, because he deliberately kept his teeth unsheathed.

Camicazi gulped. "Got it. No stealing from the scary dragon. And what do you mean, help him?"

Maour frowned. "I guess that counts as a weakness. He's missing a tailfin, and the prosthetic needs me to work. So, Toothless can't fly unless I'm conscious in the saddle. But if I am, he can fly like normal."

Camicazi felt that there was something wrong with that. Then she got it. "Wait, how can you jump off and free fall then?"

"He falls with me, and we join back up in time to pull out."

"Oh. I still think that's crazy but cool. Anyway. So Dagur's snooping where he shouldn't and has it out for you. What about Astrid?"

"Astrid is fixated on finding our home. She's setting up a massive nest search fleet. But we don't know which direction she's going. Hopefully, not straight at us. But we might get unlucky."

"Wait, what happens if she goes the wrong way? Won't she just keep trying? She'll find you eventually."

Maour's face fell. "True, actually. I hadn't thought of that. So Dagur and Astrid are both imminent threats. And they both have fairly large fleets."

Camicazi stood, and began pacing. "Okay, that's the situation. Now we need a plan. Hiding isn't going to work for much longer. Both Astrid and Dagur hate you, I assume, so negotiating with them-"

"Not an option. I already tried to get both of them to stop at one time or another. Both times ended with me fighting the lunatic involved, and then leaving."

Camicazi smiled. "But what did you say? 'please stop trying to find and murder my people, we don't want to fight anyway?'." She frowned. "Wait, what am I saying. You live with dragons, of course, they want to fight."

Toothless surprised her by shaking his head. Maour translated. "We just want to live in peace. None of us want to fight at all."

Camicazi snapped her fingers. "There you go. That's the answer. You need to threaten Astrid and Dagur, and make them back down."

"Problem is, neither of them will back down. War with Night Furies is what Astrid wants to start with! Killing us is her goal. Dagur just wants to capture his sister, and force her to work with him, for whatever reason."

"So, you make it so they can't win." Camicazi gestured to Toothless. "Astrid wants to fight Furies, so you need human allies to back you. Make her aware that she'll lose her forces before she even sees a Night Fury."

"What about Dagur?"

Camicazi grimaced. "I'm not sure yet. But get a few allies, and the odds of him attacking you go way down."

"How does an island so secret no one knows it exists acquire allies?"

Camicazi frowned. "That's the part I'm still not sure of. You'd need to have something to offer in return. And alliances really only hold between..." She grinned. "Between chiefs. Does your island have a chief or a leader of some sort?" Every island did, surely dragons wouldn't be any-

"No, actually. We have something of a voting system. We make decisions together, all of us having a say. There's no chief or really authority at all apart from whatever the pack decides goes. Night Furies are way more laid back than Vikings, so we don't really need anything else. We don't even have a prison or jail, because there's never been a need for one. A chief wouldn't really get to do anything, apart from representing the pack as a whole. Like a figurehead, but one with no person behind it."

Camicazi was amazed at how well that ridiculous system apparently worked. "So, you would say that the chief of your island is the guy representing it to the outside world?" She had an idea now.

Maour nodded. "Yup."

Camicazi laughed. "Congratulations, chief Svarturfl-whatever. Apparently, you're chief without even knowing about it. Because I assume the ridiculous stories about a dragon rider are all you. You represent your island."

Maour shook his head. "Funny. And actually, no. Me, Fishlegs, Ruffnut, and Tuffnut. And now Heather, too."

"But mainly you, because you're the one who started all of this, somehow."

Toothless chuffed, and nudged Maour, almost knocking him over. He seemed amused.

Maour turned and spoke to his brother. "Not that funny, bud. And I am not trying to get out of being a chief, Camicazi is just pointing out that by my logic, I am one." He turned back around. "Which means I should be able to speak for our island. But I don't have that authority. No deal I agreed to would be official unless the pack agrees to it."

Camicazi rubbed her hands together. "But no one else knows that. As far as they know, you can make whatever deals you want. You can always agree to things as if you are capable of making the decisions, and get the pack to agree to it later if need be."

Maour slowly nodded. "Yes, I could. And I would make sure the deals were ones the pack would approve of. So I can negotiate with chiefs. If they believe I really have that power. It's going to be difficult to convince them that I'm really a chief of anything."

Camicazi laid down the final piece of the plan. "Usually, yes. But you only have to convince one person of that. The Order-keeper at the chief meeting in a few weeks. If he says you're one of them, none of them can argue. And you'll be right there, able to negotiate with anyone at the meeting."

Maour objected immediately. "Which includes Dagur, Snotlout, and Astrid. I'd be killed in seconds."

"Nope. No one can break the peace on the meeting island, in any way. You could even bring Toothless, and as long as the Order-keeper says he's part of your group, no one can lay a hand on him or you. It's a really big deal if anyone does anyway, and no one will risk it. The Order-keeper has pretty much unlimited power, and he uses it to keep the order, as his name implies. As long as he stays neutral, no one can argue with him, because they need him to get anything done. Those meeting would be a bloodbath without him. Plus, the meeting is conducted on sacred ground, just as added insurance. Any Viking who breaks their word there is condemned eternally. It's why so many big deals are made there." Camicazi frowned. "And why Astrid wanted to use my captivity to force Bertha into a terrible deal there. She wouldn't ever be able to break it, having agreed to it there."

Maour should really have already known all of that, being the son of a chief, but he seemed surprised. "So basically, it's a massive safe-zone. Got it."

Toothless had been listening intently and asked Maour something. Maour laughed. "Bud, I don't think we can get any Viking to believe that our entire island is sacred ground. That would be amazing though. And it is pretty much already violence-free, aside from the rare squabble or invading Berserkers who need to be knocked out."

Camicazi laughed at that. "Alright, we have a plan. Best case, Astrid and Dagur both back down. Worst case, you have allies to help you fight them off. And if I have anything to say about it, the Bog-Burglars will be on the allies list." They had just lost Berk, after all. An island of Night Furies allied with them would be a more than adequate replacement. She yawned. "We can leave in the morning."

**Reason for Removal: Well, obviously Maour goes along with all of this **_**way **_**too easily. And where's the secrecy? Out the window the second an old friend shows up? I can't blame this on how long ago it was written, because unlike most of these entries, the flaw isn't outdated plot or outdated portrayals because personalities changed. No, this one and several of those that follow were plot laziness. I forced it to go where I wanted, and committed the sin of making people act out of character to get the plot in the right place. Rewriting to get where I wanted to go in a way that holds true to the characters involved was much harder, but it's better that way.**

**(As a side note, you may notice Camicazi has no problems with Maour in this scene. They didn't already argue, that simply didn't happen in this version of the story. Another improvement I made almost unintentionally when rewriting that chapter to go with who was involved, not with where I wanted to take it.)**

* * *

_**Belated Revelation **_**(Chapter 20)**

Nóttreiði came back into consciousness slowly and reluctantly. He didn't want to wake up. The memories of what he had just done were already with him. He had been such an idiot. Hating humans, longing for the day he could finally let loose, kill and destroy the ones who had so tortured his father, and all dragons. But now he finally had, and he didn't feel better. He felt a thousand times worse.

He unwillingly relived the things he had just done. Each man he had killed, clumsily and without reason. Maybe if there had been some sort of purpose, it wouldn't have been so bad. But he was killing them only because he wanted to; because he had convinced his sister that it would help lure out one human that really did deserve all of this.

He groaned softly. Stupid. These weren't even the ones who had hurt his father. For all he knew, these particular soldiers had never spilled a drop of blood in their life, or only wanted to protect their home. Probably not, but he would never know. This was partly Heather and Maour's fault. They had broken down his conviction that all humans were merciless monsters. Now, when he remembered his victims, he couldn't see monsters. He could only see the looks of unrestrained fear on their faces. Fear of him, a merciless killer who attacked without reason, killing for fun. A monster.

But that wasn't even the worst part. Einfari had been watching. She had seen it all. And now, if he ever saw her again, he was sure he'd see the same fear in her eyes. He couldn't face her again, knowing what he'd see. Better not to wake up.

But he didn't have a choice. Hearing returned first, then smell. He could hear the Berserkers talking softly, and he could smell blood and seawater. More seawater than blood, now. They must be cleaning up after him. The thought made him feel sick. But he couldn't open his mouth to even gag. It was tied shut, along with the rest of him. He was swathed in ropes, unable to do more than twitch.

Slowly, he opened his eyes. He couldn't move his head, but he could see one Berserker in particular, who was staring at him. He didn't have the heart to growl, didn't have the heart to do anything but whine softly, inaudible to all but himself.

The Berserker walked up to him and abruptly kicked him in the head. "Devil. Five good men, gone because of you." He shook his head. "No idea why you spared Delarn."

Another Berserker called out to him. "We should just kill it."

The first Berserker shook his head. "No, we can't. Dagur wants all dragons captured kept alive. Especially a Night Fury." He still sounded extremely angry. "But it'll pay for killing them."

He pulled out a knife and knelt by Nóttreiði's head, whispering to the restrained dragon as he did. "Five men. Some soldiers keep a tally of their kills. I'm sure these are just five among thousands for you, so I'm going to make sure you don't forget."

Nóttreiði didn't even try to pull away. The words of this man, though said spitefully, were daggers to his heart now. Five men dead for no reason, by his claws.

The man carefully shifted a rope, exposing the side of Nóttreiði's head, just in front of the left ear. He slowly carved four moderately deep gashes into the soft scales and skin, and then a long horizontal stripe across them. "Five."

Nóttreiði couldn't even howl in pain, though it was excruciating. The ropes were too tight. His pained whine, however, was clearly audible across the entire ship. The other Berserkers turned to look at him, even the ones watching the skies.

"What did ya do?" The Berserkers were all gathered around now, observing the first man's handiwork. "Nice. Dagur might not like it though."

The first man laughed bitterly. "You kidding? He's going to love a dragon with a kill-tally. Probably try to ride the stupid thing if it doesn't kill him first." His face darkened, and he kicked Nóttreiði again, right where he had cut him. "Stupid dragon."

**Reason for Removal: Actually, there were two reasons. The easier of the two was that I've pretty much established, though it's not at all obvious, that Raethi doesn't understand Norse at this point (he's not spent any time around Maour or the other teens, and Heather has not been around long enough). So obviously, he wouldn't be hearing the Berserker speaking to him. The other reason was that I wanted to redo his revelation, to make it less complete and more gradual (and to remove any OOC bits). Here, both the self-hatred and the realization that he was wrong come together. I decided to split them up a little in order to make it a more interesting event. So, while a very similar scene is present in the story, it's not this one. As a bonus fact, now you get to see exactly, word for word, what the Berserker was saying.**

* * *

_**Change of Heart**_** (Chapter 20)**

'Nóttreiði, come on!' Einfari wasn't taking silence as an answer. 'Whatever your problem is, it can wait until we're off of this deathtrap.' She leaned over, and Heather jumped into the saddle.

Nóttreiði forced himself up and spread his wings. He didn't really care, but he didn't want Einfari to worry…. If she still would, after seeing what he had done. He weakly launched himself up, and dully winged towards the mountain. Once they landed in their normal spot near the summit of the mountain, he curled up into as small a circle as possible and made sure to cover his head with his tailfins. Heather and Einfari hadn't noticed the wound yet, probably because of everything else going on. He was sure it would be glaringly obvious once they weren't distracted, and he wasn't ready to face the questions yet.

He felt and heard Einfari landing beside him, and nosing his wings worriedly. He could tell Heather was walking around to his front, from the sound of her footsteps.

Heather spoke first. "That wasn't the best idea, in retrospect." She sounded sad, and a little angry. "We should have expected them to be better prepared."

Nóttreiði whined loudly, an entirely involuntary response. He knew that all too well. He flinched as Einfari nosed at his tailfins.

'Nóttreiði?' Einfari sounded extremely concerned. She had probably been expecting anger or indignation at being captured. His typical reactions to anything involving humans. Definitely not that pained whine. She inhaled, smelling him. 'Nóttreiði, you're bleeding somewhere.'

Nóttreiði growled ever so softly. 'Yes. And I deserve it.' He spat out the next words, for once only angry with himself. 'I'm a monster.'

Years of hating humans, not knowing any better, might have been excusable. He had been young and immature. Holding on to that hatred with Maour and now Heather, with everyone he knew telling him to let go, was not excusable at all. If he had given in at any point before now, it would have been okay. But he had held to his simple view of the world because it allowed him to hate. Allowed him to do this.

All of the lectures, disappointment, and sadness his own actions had brought to others over the years had finally broken through, and it was crushing him. Was this what growing up felt like? Maybe if one held on to childish views for far too long and accidentally did it all at once. If one woke up one day and discovered they were a terrible person. That was what this felt like.

Einfari barked in surprise, interrupting his wallowing. 'What? You're not a monster!' She clearly didn't like what he had done, or his unvarying hatred of all humans, but that was nowhere near him being a monster in her eyes... because she didn't expect any better of him.

'Yes, I am. Tonight just proved that. I saw the pure terror in their eyes, and I didn't care.' He still hadn't moved from his huddled position, hiding from their eyes. 'And you saw it.'

Heather spoke softly. "Not true. Or you would have killed the sixth Berserker. But you didn't. So clearly, you did care. Once you realized what you were doing, at least."

Nóttreiði spoke sadly, slowly shifting his tailfin to reveal the wound. 'I still killed them for no reason. One of them made sure I'll never be able to forget that. As if I ever could anyway.'

Einfari gasped as she saw the five deep cuts in her brother's head, slightly in front of the left ear, spanning from the base of it to an inch from his eye. They were oozing blood. She rushed over and began licking the wounds, frantically trying to seal them with her saliva, as Night Furies were capable of that. She took a step back after a moment and eyed the now treated wound. 'It will scar.' That was said almost angrily. 'I hope I got the Berserker who did that with my fire.'

Nóttreiði shrugged. 'Heather did. And it was supposed to scar. That was the point. To make sure I remember, and I quote 'just five more kills among thousands.' He still wasn't looking Einfari in the eye. 'To remember the day I became a monster, in front of my own sister.'

Einfari moved closer and forced her brother to look her in the eyes. 'Stop. You're not a monster. You've just realized what you did was wrong. If you liked it even now, that would make you a monster, someone who enjoys killing. You're better because of that, even if it did take a huge mistake to get you to see the truth.'

Nóttreiði moaned. 'You'll never be able to even look at me without remembering me killing them just because I wanted to.' He flicked his left ear, drawing her eyes to the wound. 'And everyone will ask.'

Einfari nodded. 'They will. And that's one of the consequences of this. But it isn't just your fault. Heather and I should have stopped you. We let you do something we knew was wrong because it might have helped us get to Dagur.' She growled. 'Want an example of what you aren't? Dagur kills for fun, or for any reason whatsoever. Do you?'

'Never again.' Nóttreiði was adamant about that. The very idea of killing anyone made him sick to his stomach now. It brought back those same memories.

'Then you aren't a bad person. You were angry, hateful, and unable to control yourself. But you can change that, and make sure you never get to this point again.' What she had all along been hoping he would do. Maybe with this horrible event, he would find a reason to change.

'I've done such a terrible thing.' Nóttreiði wanted to believe her, but it was difficult. 'And I'm not sure how to change anything.'

Heather spoke up. "I think you just have to want to change. And we'll help if we can." She put one hand on Einfari's wing, and the other on Nóttreiði's right ear, careful to avoid the wound on the other side of his head. "Together."

Nóttreiði whined sadly. 'And I've treated you both so badly. Heather, I hated, and I ignored Einfari every time she tried to get me to think past my own stupidity.' He recalled times on their journey when Einfari would lecture him in private, trying to get him to give Heather a chance. She did it in secret, to avoid embarrassing him in front of the others, but she still did it. He had resented it, and the fact that his own younger sister was lecturing him like he was a fledgling. He had just tuned her out.

Einfari nodded. 'You did. Now just try to do better.' She put a paw on his wing-shoulder. "I forgive you. For the way, you treated me, and everything else.'

There was that, at least. His sister did not hate him. He still had that.

* * *

Heather followed suit. "And I forgive you." She did. She thought she understood now. Nóttreiði had never seen war, never even seen much violence. So when he had been told of his father's past, he latched onto it, the only bad thing he knew of in his sheltered life. He built up his vision of the world around the idea of good versus evil, no blurred lines. All of his anger towards her was just the sheltered dragon inside trying to keep his black-and-white view of the world intact. But now that view had been destroyed. Hopefully, for the better, despite what it took to break it.

'I don't know why you do. I wouldn't even want to be around me if I was you.' Nóttreiði curled inward a little more.

Heather frowned. "You made a mistake. A big one, but still just a mistake. And no one is perfect. So why wouldn't we?" She felt some sort of gesture was needed. "And we aren't just going to let you crawl off and be miserable about this." She walked over to Einfari and whispered in her ear.

Einfari nodded and took off. Heather and Nóttreiði watched as she went down to the ocean, far from the ship or the village.

Heather had picked two things out of the saddlebags before Einfari had left. A cloth, and one of their water canisters. She moved over to Nóttreiði's head and sat within his range of vision. "I'm going to get the blood off of you. Hold still for a minute."

Nóttreiði sighed, closing his eyes. At least he didn't object either.

Heather smiled slightly as she carefully cleaned his face off, despite the nature of the task at hand. It would have been far more efficient to just have him dunk himself in the ocean, but that would have hurt his wound like crazy. Besides, she felt that a human cleaning off the blood might mean more to Nóttreiði than simply washing away the evidence himself. And he wasn't objecting at all. He really was trying to change. Or maybe he was just too depressed and sickened to object right now.

She didn't like the idea that he might be depressed. He might have a right to be, but she wouldn't let him slip into it. She cared too much about Einfari, and by extension Nóttreiði himself, to let him be depressed. So, once she had gotten the blood off, she ditched the cloth and just started gently scratching him, avoiding the injured area. She knew this felt good, from what she observed of Maour and Toothless, and with Einfari herself on occasion. It was one of those weird things that would feel awkward in the extreme with any human but was just a friendly gesture with a dragon.

After a few moments, Nóttreiði began to purr softly. His eyes were still closed, and he even leaned in slightly.

Heather grinned. That was definitely intentional on his part. She kept going, trying not to laugh. This was by far the most pleasant interaction she had ever had with Nóttreiði. She would have gotten her hand bitten off if she had tried this before.

As she scratched under his chin, she examined the bloody gashes. They had clearly been done by a blade, and not at all carefully. The four parallel lines were moderately uniform in size and length, with a diagonal line bisecting the middle one, and extending a few inches out past the outer lines. It was a brutal wound, especially given it was still open under Einfari's protective coating of saliva. It wasn't directly on top of his head, but it also wasn't on the side. It was right on the edge, visible from both an above and side view. Nóttreiði was right, it would be impossible to miss. There would be questions when they returned home.

'I'm so sorry.' Nóttreiði was still purring, and outwardly nothing had changed, but he was speaking now. 'I've been horrible to you.'

"I already forgave you. Stop thinking about that, and just keep doing whatever it is that's keeping you from hating me now."

'I am.' Nóttreiði was quiet for a moment and then spoke again. 'I want to let you call me by some short name, as friends and family do. But Nóttreiði doesn't really shorten into anything usable.'

"What does it mean?" Heather had actually been wondering that for a while.

Nóttreiði grimaced his face wrinkling. He let out a short bark of pain when the wound was disturbed by that movement. 'Night Rage.'

Heather winced. Yeah, that wasn't good. "Really. Dare I ask how you got that name? I thought Furies were named shortly after hatching?"

'We are. I tried to bite the crumbled bits of my eggshell a few minutes after hatching, when I stumbled on a piece, apparently.' His amused tone abruptly dropped back into sorrow. 'It has become far too close to the truth. I never want to be called Rage.'

"Understandable. So you can't shorten your name, and using the meaning is out. What does your family call you?" Skarpur had told her they had no official short name for him, but maybe there was a nickname she just hadn't heard yet.

'Nóttreiði. No one ever came up with anything less formal, and I didn't mind. Now I do. Even Nótthljóður calls me Nóttreiði.' There was definite sadness in that.

"Well..." Heather had no ideas, but this seemed important to Nóttreiði. "I'm not going to stop thinking until I come up with something. Maybe Einfari has some suggestions." She continued scratching Nóttreiði's head, as she had been doing. He never asked her to stop, and she figured it must be helping in some small way.

A few fish dropped by Heather, and Einfari laughed. 'What have we here?' She had apparently returned, silently enough that neither of them noticed.

Nóttreiði jerked his head up, looking straight at Einfari. His expression seemed to be a mixture of embarrassment and annoyance.

Einfari purred, nudging some of the fish towards him. 'Don't mind me. I see this as an improvement, remember?' She sat down right next to him.

Nóttreiði chuffed wearily. 'Right.' He slowly took one of the fish, still moving almost lethargically.

"Einfari, Nóttreiði wants a short name that we can use." Well, he had specifically mentioned her, but from the way he talked, Heather was pretty sure Nóttreiði wouldn't mind Einfari using it too.

Einfari eyed her brother, who was slowly eating the fish she had brought. 'Fine by me. Any suggestions so far?'

"No, actually. We were wondering if you had any ideas."

Einfari hummed thoughtfully, lashing her tail. 'That's hard...' She thought about it. 'Any general ideas of how to narrow it down?'

Heather nodded. "It should be something positive. Not rage, or anger, or anything like that. He's trying to leave all of that behind." She frowned. "But not something passive."

Nóttreiði stared at her questioningly.

She smiled. "You're still a dragon. And you will still fight to defend, or protect. I'm sure of that. It's right and natural. So nothing passive."

Nóttreiði purred softly. 'I like that. What is something that only protects, and never attacks?'

Heather grinned. "There we go. I think we should call you Shield. That fits those requirements perfectly."

'I like that. Shield. Are you okay with being called that?' Einfari nudged Nóttreiði with her paw. 'We won't use it if you don't like it.'

Nóttreiði spoke out loud, voicing his thoughts as they occurred. 'I like the sound of it... and I do still want to protect my family... even if it means fighting. But I'm never going to enjoy even the thought of fighting again. So Shield works.' He stretched and resettled into a less constricted position. His eyes started to drift shut of their own accord.

Einfari purred. 'Sleep. We'll keep watch, and see how Dagur reacts.' They did still have that goal.

Shield nodded. 'I'll try.'

**Reason for Removal: Oh, so many reasons. This one was absolutely terrible; it hurts to read through. I'm not even going to go into detail; just how badly I neutered all that made Nóttreiði unique should be readily apparent. It is interesting to note, however, that this development is adapted and fixed in the final version of the story, spreading across several dozen chapters instead of half of one chapter. I fixed it, more or less. The idea was okay, but the execution here was absolutely awful.**


	48. Deleted Scenes II

_**Author's Note: **_**Time for the second group of deleted scenes! As before, here's a table of contents to help make sense of it all:**

_**Disowning and Adopting**_** (Chapter 23)**

_**Fighting For Respect **_**(Chapter 23)**

_**Crowd Problems **_**(Chapter 23)**

_**Conversing with Chieftains **_**(Chapter 25)**

_**Another Path**_** (Chapter 27)**

_**Too Far, Even for a Myrkur **_**(Chapter 31)**

_**Disowning and Adopting**_** (Chapter 23)**

* * *

Heather looked up and saw Dagur walking towards her. She instinctively reached for her ax, only to remember that Toothless had it, securely away from her.

'Remember, we can intervene if you need us to.' Shield was intentionally positioned only a few feet away, ready to move forward, and form the other half of the protective circle around Heather that Einfari was currently acting as the back of. They had been prepared for this. Heather took comfort in feeling her best friend behind her, who literally had her back.

She looked Dagur in the eye as he approached, and allowed herself to feel all of the hate for him she harbored. Hopefully, it would show in her eyes.

Dagur was oblivious at first. But as he got closer, he saw it.

"Wow, talk about a cold welcome. You'd think I wasn't wanted here." He sat down cross-legged a few feet from Heather. He motioned for Savage to sit next to him, carefully positioning Savage between himself and Shield, who was in that direction.

"You aren't. I'd kill you right now if I hadn't been convinced that some things are more important." Heather's voice was cold.

"That's the spirit! But really, you can drop the act. Hiccup isn't around." Dagur had come up with the theory that Heather was playing Hiccup in some sort of long con. What other explanation was there for her apparent hatred towards him?

Heather grimaced. "Svarturflugmaður, you mean. And why should he be around? This is no act."

Dagur looked at the Night Furies. "Oh, has he set his pets to guard you? Well, we can always work around that." He grinned.

Shield abruptly started laughing, and Einfari joined in. Heather tried to keep a straight face, but she had heard Shield's comment, and she couldn't. She broke out laughing as well.

Dagur was nonplussed by that. "What's so funny?"

Heather regained some level of control, and responded, voice heavy with scorn and mirth. "Shield said you should move downwind of us. You stink so badly of insanity that it's making him dizzy."

Dagur scowled. "Really, is that so? Well too bad. Heather, you should know better than to try and fool your own brother. I know very well dragons can't talk, no matter what Hiccup might claim. They're mindless animals." He abruptly laughed. "That's why they're so fun to hunt!"

Heather smiled condescendingly. "You're hopeless, so I'm not even going to bother. Just stop chasing me, and I might even stop trying to kill you." She really would, if Dagur would just leave the island alone. It would be worth it. She understood that now.

"But what about your destiny? You're a Berserker, like it or not. You belong on Berserker island, working to make our people as great as possible, like me!"

Heather glared at Dagur. "Get this through your insane head, and remember it. I would rather wipe you off of the face of the earth than spend an instant helping the one who had my entire village killed for no good reason."

Dagur frowned. "I'm actually starting to believe you a little. Great acting skills. But seriously, stop. We both know family is more important than anything, and I'm all you've got left."

Heather smiled. "Wrong, on both counts. Because you killed your own father. Clearly, family is not more important than personal power to you." She continued despite having already made her point, intent on hitting Dagur where it was going to hurt. "You are nowhere near the only family I have left. I don't care about blood or heritage, you are in no way related to me." She laughed at Dagur's enraged face. "And Einfari here is pretty much my sister at this point. Which makes Shield my brother."

Dagur scowled, staring at Einfari. "You count a dragon as family? Instead of me?"

"Yes. And Shield is a better brother and person than you could ever be." Heather truly believed that now more than ever.

Shield purred in appreciation, still not taking his eyes off of Dagur and Savage. 'Now?'

"Not yet." Heather took in Dagur and Savage's confusion. "Not talking to you two."

Dagur shook his head in denial. "Maybe you are crazy. It must run in the family. You're coming back to Berserker island with me, like it or not. It would be easier if you just came peacefully." He smiled slyly. "You could even bring your two guards here with you. I'm sure in time I can break that one over there to obey me instead of scrawny Hiccup." He gestured to Shield.

Heather really wished she had her ax. "I will not be going anywhere with you. I've already killed to prevent exactly that scenario." She remembered the man who had bled out in her defense of Einfari.

Dagur frowned. "When?"

Heather decided to drop the news. Maybe this would convince him. "We three here have been trying to catch you alone and kill you for weeks. Svarturflugmaður didn't even know, he thought we had gone home. We watched you all day for days. When we figured out that it would be too risky to attack you in your village, we worked to lure you out." Let Dagur realize the rest on his own.

Dagur's face was slowly turning red. "That was you?! The lone Night Fury roaring at the island patrol, and then killing everyone on board the next night?"

Heather laughed angrily. "Yup. Your little ambush the second night almost worked. We won't be that stupid again. Then we followed your fleet, all the way here. Hoping to get a shot at you." She glared at him. "I killed the soldier of yours that hurt Shield myself." She gestured to Shield, who glared. "Believe my desire to kill you is real now?"

"Yes. I don't know why, but app-"

"Don't know why. Did it ever occur to you that killing an entire village of people I knew and liked might be a great way to get me to hate you? Of course not, because you have no conscience. If I ever run into you on a battlefield or in combat, I'll kill you. But I'm done wasting my time trying to kill you otherwise. You're nothing to me but another insane idiot. Shield now would be a good time."

As Dagur got to his feet in rage, Shield moved between him and Heather, physically blocking her from view. He crouched in front of Dagur and folded his wings back, obscuring Heather even further, and getting them out of Dagur's striking range. He growled motioning with his head back in the direction Dagur had come from.

Savage saw that. "Uh, Dagur? I think the dragon is telling us to leave."

Dagur mumbled incoherently, fumbling for his ax. But the little self-aware portion of him that kept Savage around made him listen. He settled for yelling. "I'll never stop hunting you! If you won't be a Berserker, then you'll die like the rest of your stupid island!"

Shield snorted, eyeing him disdainfully. He spoke, knowing Dagur couldn't hear him. 'You'll have to go through me first.'

**Reason for Removal: Really, it just didn't fit. Dagur isn't as passive as he would need to be for this to work, Raethi isn't anywhere near how his character should act, and neither is Heather, and it's generally mushy and crap. The story had already diverged too far for this to be salvageable.**

* * *

_**Fighting For Respect **_**(Chapter 23)**

Maour made his way towards the Meathead's camp.

Toothless walked beside him, warily eyeing every Viking in sight. He wouldn't be caught unaware. He could still remember Dagur springing out of nowhere on that rocky nightmare of an island. Being surprised like that again was unacceptable.

Maour noticed his brother's wariness. He wouldn't tell Toothless to let down his guard, not here. Besides, it made his brother look far more intimidating, constantly surveying the area. Like a sentinel, ready to strike in an instant. But he felt Toothless needed to be reassured. "Bud, we'll be fine. Just, whatever you do, don't attack first. As long as you only strike in retaliation we'll be fine. And no one will attack because of that. But they might try to provoke you. So be careful." That was a big worry. Vikings who wanted a Night Fury trophy for their wall badly enough might try and trick Toothless into attacking so that they would have the right to kill him in retribution. Maour trusted his brother, but Toothless needed to be warned so he knew it was a possibility.

'Okay. But it's hard. I don't trust anyone around us.'

Maour nodded. "Neither do I. But these guys here might be our allies soon, so try not to be too hostile.'

Toothless snorted. 'They're the hostile ones.'

Maour didn't answer that. They were now in sight of the Meatheads' camp. Mogadon was watching his son Thuggory, who was sparring with another Meathead, the sand flying around them as they moved, grunting and panting in the sunlight, eyes squinted against the glare.

"Don't let up! Keep pushing him!' Mogadon was certainly optimistic with his advice. Thuggory was being beaten back at the moment, by the much older and apparently stronger Meathead he was fighting. Thuggory wasn't bad, but he certainly wasn't very good with the sword he was using. He was barely holding his own.

Through chance, the sparring was set up so that Mogadon had his back to Maour and Toothless, and Thuggory was angled so that he couldn't see them either. But the other sparring Meathead could. When Toothless happened to walk into the Meathead's line of sight, the Meathead faltered and stopped dead for a moment.

That was all Thuggory needed to put his sword to his opponent's throat. He seemed confused by the sudden victory.

"What was that?! I said to push him, not give up!" Mogadon did not sound happy.

"You were giving advice to your son's opponent?" Maour figured he might as well speak up.

Mogadon turned and flinched ever so slightly upon seeing Toothless. He answered angrily. "Of course. How else is he going to improve, if I don't push him? And I don't appreciate your interference."

Maour smirked. "It wasn't intentional. My brother can't help it if trained warriors freeze at the sight of him." And yet another point over Mogadon. It was a stupid system, but one the chiefs all used to their own advantage. He'd take advantage of it if it would help. "I've found that helping the person you want to improve usually works better."

"Your brother. Sure. The killer reptile can't help it if the people he raids for fun don't like him." Mogadon thought he was making a good point. "And of course the boy who could never even lift a sword would say that. I guess Stoick never pushed you hard enough." He smirked. "You need a dragon just to protect you."

Maour stared back. "That would be a compelling argument if it was true. But the dragons raided because they had no choice. When we killed their enslaver, they freely stopped." He glared. "And Stoick pushed far too hard. He never even considered that a ninety-pound boy might need a lighter weapon. Regardless, I have no need to be protected. I can handle myself."

Mogadon scoffed. "Prove it. There's going to be a friendly sparring competition among most of the chiefs at noon." He smirked. "Unless of course, you won't be there."

Maour hadn't known of that. The idea of 'sparring' with Dagur made his blood run cold. Accidents could happen. With Dagur, they would given half a chance. "That would be fine if I was stupid enough to spar against people who want me dead. I won't be participating." He wouldn't let Mogadon get one over him. "But I'd be happy to fight your son, and the Meathead he was sparring... at the same time. Two on one." He had gotten their measure. Neither of the two was very good, though the older Meathead was much better than Thuggory.

Mogadon stared at him. "Two on one. You're mighty confident."

Maour shrugged. "I'd offer to do it blindfolded too, but Camicazi kicked me in the shin when I beat her like that. I'd rather not insult any more heirs. Thuggory might be able to kick harder than Camicazi. Two on one makes it a fair fight." And another point to him. If he won, that is.

Mogadon smiled thoughtfully. "I don't believe that either. Thuggory, Zylus, you up for showing a chief his place?"

Thuggory laughed. "I'll get my hammer. I hate swords anyway." He stared at Maour challengingly. "I almost never use them." He grabbed a hammer sitting in the sand near Mogadon, and walked back to the place he had fought the older Meathead, apparently called Zylus. "Ready?"

Maour really wished he had known Thuggory wasn't fighting with his primary weapon. This was looking to be much harder than he had thought. But he couldn't back out. "Sure."

Toothless huffed in annoyance. 'You tell me not to worry, then get into a fight. You're sending very mixed messages.' He settled down in the sand, appearing relaxed and unconcerned. In reality, he was ready to leap into action in half a second, if need be.

Maour took his scythe off of his back and stepped onto the sand. He kept it locked for the moment. "Ready."

Thuggory hesitated for a moment, glancing at Maour's weapon. "What is that?" When Maour didn't answer, he shrugged and charged, hammer raised.

This was a fight to first blood. Maour had to assume that meant he would need to draw blood from both of his opponents, or put them in a position that would mean death in a real fight, which was why he hadn't unlocked his scythe. He was pretty sure he could catch one of them by surprise with that. The question was, which of them was more dangerous? He took a split-second to glance at each of them. Thuggory held the hammer confidently, no apparent unease at the prospect of facing someone with a polearm. Maour couldn't tell if his charging was an intelligent strategy or just Viking stupidity. It could be either.

Zylus, on the other hand, had begun advancing cautiously. He clearly suspected Maour was more than capable of being a threat. That made Maour's mind up for him. He might not catch Zylus by surprise, but he could definitely get Thuggory. He swung his scythe at Thuggory's hammer, aiming the folded spike behind the hammer itself.

Thuggory took the bait and tried to bat it away with the hammer. He hit the scythe on the rod, and the impact jarred the spike out of it's locked position. The sharp tip dragged a light furrow along Thuggory's forearm as it pivoted, even as Maour took a step forward and out to Thuggory's side, redirecting the force of the blow so that the scythe wasn't knocked away.

Thuggory stared in shock at the blood seeping out of his arm. It wasn't a very deep cut, but the rules were clear. He was already out.

Maour, however, had no time to appreciate that fact. His move against Thuggory had taken him into the range of Zylus's sword, which was at the moment speeding towards his neck. He jerked the other end of the scythe up and knocked the blade away. He continued with the forward momentum, spinning the scythe end down, which pulled the back end up and around, swinging down towards Zylus.

Zylus countered, and they settled into a fast-paced flurry of strike and counterstrike. Maour was doing most of the striking, as he had more blades to work with. Zylus was good, but not that good. It took longer than with Camicazi, but eventually, Zylus faltered, his sword rising just a hair too slow. Maour thrust the scythe forward with both hands, resting the sharp edge against Zylus's neck. It was over.

Zylus lowered his sword and backed away. He smiled and shook Maour's hand. "Well played. That weapon is terrifying in your hands. I wouldn't want to risk trying it myself. Have you ever hurt yourself in a fight using it?"

Maour smiled. "Nope. Of course, I spent a while just learning how to move it safely, and I cut myself a few times then. That was while wearing leather armor specifically so I didn't hurt myself. It took quite a while to master." A good portion of five years. But it had been worth it.

Thuggory was far less content with what had happened. "That wasn't fair, you just scratched me. In a real fight, I would have still kept going."

Maour laughed. "In a real fight, my brother would have taken you out at the start, so that I wouldn't be fighting two-on-one to start with. And Zylus, if he didn't move fast enough."

Thuggory scoffed, though it sounded fake. He eyed Toothless, hefting his hammer. "I wouldn't be that easy to stop, even for a Night Fury."

Toothless warbled happily, smiling gummily. Then his teeth shot out, and he growled.

Thuggory paled.

Toothless retracted his teeth, and purred smugly, sitting back down.

Mogadon scowled at that. "You've certainly taught that beast a few tricks. But I-"

Maour cut him off. "Don't bother. It doesn't really matter what you believe. But you should know, I have no grudge against either you or your son."

That caught Mogadon's attention. "Why would you?"

Maour shrugged. "No reason. I mean, it's not as if you used my lack of Viking-like qualities to embarrass my father every time we saw you. And I'm sure that had nothing to do with his disdain for me, having my apparent failures rubbed in his face by a friend every so often. And of course Thuggory, you were always so courteous and helpful. I'm sure you never once helped Snotlout make my life miserable for fun." His voice had been cold, but now it was neutral. "But as I said, Hiccup is gone. I harbor no resentments towards you. In fact, tonight I will be seeking you out, Mogadon. I have something to discuss with you then." Hopefully, Mogadon would listen.

Mogadon rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I will be prepared to listen. More than that I can't say."

Maour nodded. "That's all I ask right now." He would do the real convincing tonight.

He and Toothless left the Meatheads' camp a while later, after some obligatory conversation with Mogadon. It would be seen as rude and manipulative for them to show up, make a point, and then immediately leave. Not that either Maour or Mogadon enjoyed said conversation. Mogadon boasted of his accomplishments, which mostly involved killing dragons. Maour listened silently and then described the Red Death briefly. That shut Mogadon down. But Maour had hated hearing of Mogadon's many kills, and the detail he went into in describing them was clearly designed to upset Maour and Toothless if Mogadon even considered the idea that the dragon was listening. The most positive thing Mogadon had said was that there weren't any dragons around to kill recently, so his tribe had given up looking. At least he wasn't consistently adding to his list of kills anymore. That was the best Maour figured he could expect.

'I don't like him.' Toothless was skeptical that Mogadon would be of any help.

"We don't have to like him. We just need his tribe as allies. He's nowhere near the worst of the chiefs." Maour was cautiously optimistic. That was one down.

**Reason for Removal: Simply put, it was too easy, and no longer fit the larger plot. Also, in the revised version of the story I established that sparring had to be done off of the island itself, rendering this and the next scene impossible to use as-is. Both this and the other mentioned scene ended up not making the cut for that and other reasons.**

* * *

_**Crowd Problems **_**(Chapter 23)**

Heather caught Maour up on what had happened with Dagur, and Maour told her Mogadon had gone as well as could be expected.

The crowd was there for the sparring of the chiefs. The Order-Keeper was actually the one who had initiated the event. It was a carefully calculated risk on his part. He knew that Vikings needed a way to let off steam, and if he hosted the event, he could make sure rules were followed. But participation was voluntary and restricted to chiefs so that it didn't last all day.

The Order-Keeper cleared a space in the sand and drew a large circle. "Everyone, settle down! Now, would all the participating chiefs step inside the circle, and everyone else back away!"

Once that had been done, there were eight chieftains in the circle. Apparently, Smith of the Waxears wouldn't be participating either.

When the Order-Keeper announced that, Smith spoke up from the crowd. "My daughter doesn't need to see me fighting. She's a bit too young for that. I'll crush you all next time." He looked down. "Oh, and if any of you see my daughter, give me a shout. I'm sure she's around here somewhere..." He wandered off into the crowd.

Then the Order-Keeper split the eight Vikings into their first match-ups. Maour enjoyed watching Alvin the Treacherous humiliate Snotlout in their match. Apparently, Alvin was still mad at Snotlout for killing Stoick and gave Snotlout many humiliating bruises with the flat of his ax before finally drawing blood.

Alvin had moved on, along with Duncan, Trott, and Dagur. Dagur had trounced Norbert in his match and apparently taunted him the entire time. Maour was watching the four chiefs prepare for the next match when Toothless let out a small bark of surprise.

'What are you doing?' Toothless sounded confused. He looked back at his tail.

"Toothless?" Maour was worried now.

'I felt someone tug at my false tailfin. But they're gone.'

Einfari spoke. "We shouldn't be in this crowd. It's a bit too enclosed. Someone could strike at us without revealing themselves.' She looked around uneasily.

Shield nodded. 'Follow me. I'll clear a path.' He proceeded to wind his way back through the spectating Vikings, glaring at anyone who wouldn't move to create space. The others followed him.

'I felt it again!' Toothless was getting frantic now. This invasion of his personal space was very unnerving.

Soon they had forced their way out of the crowd and regrouped a couple dozen feet away. They could hear cheering, and Dagur shouting above that. Toothless huddled in between Einfari and Shield, trying to protect his tailfin. Maour and Heather scanned the crowd.

"I don't know who it was. Everyone seems caught up in the fights. Well, almost everyone." Heather nodded at the crowd.

Maour grimaced. "I don't see Astrid or Snotlout." They might be the culprits. Although tugging a piece of fabric seemed somewhat tame for them. "Toothless, is your tail still intact?"

Toothless nodded. 'It is. Nothing's broken, or ripped.' He snorted. 'It didn't feel like they were trying to break anything. Just tugging at it.'

Heather squinted, looking into the crowd. "I think I see Astrid. She's watching the fight."

Maour abruptly laughed. "And I think I see our culprit." He walked back to the crowd.

Einfari watched him go. 'What is he doing?'

Heather shrugged. "No idea." Maour hadn't seemed angry.

A few seconds later, Maour reemerged, leading a young girl by the hand. She seemed excited, bouncing and talking to him happily. He was grinning.

Toothless stared in annoyance. 'She was the one pulling my tail?'

"Yup. This is chief Smith's daughter, Kim. Kim, this is Heather, Einfari, Toothless, and Shield." He had a feeling Toothless would be a better name to tell a child than Svarturkappi.

Now that she was here, Kim wasn't so enthusiastic. "Hi..." She waved shyly.

Maour smiled at her. "Don't worry, these dragons are friendly. You shouldn't just pull on a dragon's tail though. It's an important part of them like fingers are for us. They won't like it."

Kim looked at Maour questioningly. "But his is different from the others. Why does he have a tail with metal bits?"

"Because, well... Do you know any Vikings with hooks or peg legs?"

"Yes, lots."

"That's what his tail is. A replacement part, because he lost the original. It's just a bit more complex because it has to be able to do more than a peg leg does." Maour didn't feel like explaining any more than that.

Toothless was feeling much less annoyed now. He warbled, intentionally making the sound as happy as possible, and moved out from between Einfari and Shield. He sat down a few feet away and swept his tail around, so Kim could see the prosthetic.

"Cool. Way cooler than old Elser's hook hand." Kim cautiously approached Toothless, looking at the tail. "He's trained, right? He won't attack me?"

Maour frowned. "No, he's like you or me, not an animal. He doesn't want to attack you and is choosing not to. You should talk to him yourself. You can't hear him, but I can tell you what he says."

Kim looked from Toothless to Maour suspiciously. "How do I know you're not making up whatever you want?"

Maour sighed. "Even kids want proof. Seriously, where's the blind trust these days?" He laughed. "If you're brave enough, whisper your question into his ear. Then I won't know what you asked."

Toothless snorted. 'Seriously? I'll get spit on my ear!'

"Oh just go with it, you big baby."

'Fine.' Toothless nodded slowly and put his head at ground level, perking an ear.

Kim stared. "Alright, sure." She walked over and whispered something to Toothless.

'Maour, she wants to know why I'm called Toothless.'

Maour laughed. "Kim, he doesn't need me to answer that."

Toothless sat up and grinned, his teeth sheathed. He smiled wider when Kim giggled. 'She's better than any other Viking here.'

Einfari snorted. 'That's because she's still a child. They aren't so stubborn and set in their ways.'

"Wow. Alright..." Kim whispered something else.

Toothless immediately drooped, his face falling. 'She's asking how I lost my tailfin. I don't think that's a story she needs to hear.'

Maour spoke quietly. "That's a sad story, Kim, and a very long one. Maybe some other time."

Kim frowned. "Okay. Can you help me find my dad? He's probably looking for me somewhere around here. We got separated in the crowd." She turned to look ever her shoulder at the Vikings.

At that moment, there was a tremendous cheer, and Dagur could be heard screaming with glee. Maour guessed that Dagur had just won his match or even the entire thing. He didn't care. Even this was far more important. "Sure."

**Reason for Removal: Really, I was just rewriting everything and didn't want to try and force this into shape when I could just redo it. (Also, they're fighting on the island, which I later established to be against the terms of the peace.)**

* * *

_**Conversing with Chieftains **_**(Chapter 25)**

Toothless abruptly stiffened, only moving his eyes and tail, pulling Maour close. 'Astrid is coming this way.'

Maour quickly located her, striding towards them purposefully. "Let's take advantage of this. Get ready to run, bud. I'm going to push her as far as I can, and see what she says in anger. Hopefully, something useful."

Toothless whined. 'This is not a good idea.'

Maour smiled up at his brother. "Come on. Worst case scenario, she attacks. And then..." He frowned. "Well, we get to kill her, I guess. And I don't kill in cold blood. That might be a problem. Hopefully, she won't attack." He hugged Toothless briefly, fully aware Astrid was watching as she approached. "I trust you to be fast enough because you are. It will be fine."

'Okay. I would say be careful, but you're throwing that off of a cliff, metaphorically speaking.'

Maour grinned, turning to face Astrid. "That I am. But what better place than here?" He spoke to the approaching warrior, who was a few steps away. "Close enough, Astrid."

Astrid grinned unsettlingly, ax in hand. "Coward."

"Cautious for good reason. A madwoman with an ax is a fair reason for that."

"I'd kill you both right now. But I have bigger plans."

Maour laughed slightly. "Sure you do. That reminds me, you two were never properly introduced. Astrid, this is Toothless. Toothless, this is Astrid, a nutcase with an ax and an unhealthy obsession that will get her killed one day." His voice was still light and mocking. He really was going to push her as far as possible.

Toothless growled menacingly.

Astrid's face darkened. "I'll make sure to capture you alive. That way I can force you to watch as I raze your demon nest to the ground, salt the earth, and kill everything that lives on that island. Then I'll kill you."

Maour had a hard time keeping a happy expression. That threat hit way too close to home. "Why the hate, Astrid? The way I see it, we've done you nothing but good. No scrawny Hiccup to bother you, no more dragon raids to trash Berk, no more war. Hell, I even let Snotlout become heir by leaving, and that let you pull his strings. You've gotten everything. But you just can't be happy, can you?"

Astrid was only getting angrier, judging by her rapidly reddening face and cold eyes. "I haven't gotten what I want. A world rid of dragons for good. Starting with your favorite species." She smiled a sadistic smile, still impossibly angry and getting madder. "I like finding nests. We found a Nadder nest once. Smashing eggs is the best part. Does your home have any eggs? I bet it does. I'll make you watch that too."

Now Maour had to hold himself back. He dropped all pretense of levity. "Over my dead body."

Astrid grinned. "No, I've already decided to keep you alive, remember?"

Maour literally growled. "Fine. Over your dead body. You and anyone you bring with you. If there's even a body left."

Astrid smirked. "I thought you didn't kill in cold blood, the weakling that you are."

"Go to Helheim. I'm sure you'll be welcome there." Maour was done with trying to provoke Astrid. It clearly wasn't working. She was doing better at provoking him.

"And you'll go wherever mindless beasts like dragons go when they die. That will be a fitting fate." Astrid was speaking in utter seriousness.

Maour smiled, suddenly at peace, anger wiped away by what Astrid had intended as an insult. "Hopefully. No god would be cruel enough to separate me from my real family anyway. So I'm fine with that."

Astrid scowled. "You're more dragon than man. And the man is a spineless weakling, just like the dragon." She gestured to him. "You even wear dragon scales."

Maour spread his arms. "I wear armor made from the shed scales of my brother, mother, father, and sister. My family protects me, even when I'm alone. Too bad you can't say the same." He made eye contact. "You are so alone because you're so fixated on one goal. And that goal is nothing but the death of others. When we are gone, what can you claim as your impact on the world? A thousand grieving families and ended bloodlines if you get your way. Death and destruction. If I did nothing else if I died today, do you know what I'd have that you don't? Someone who can honestly say, 'they made my life better'." He inhaled briefly.

"My brother, who assures me the good I've done for him outweighs the harm. My family, who genuinely are glad I'm with them. My people, who I've spent years with, living happily in peace. Everyone in the archipelago who no longer suffers from the raids. And the thousands of dragons who are no longer slaves to an evil Queen. I've improved the world. You haven't." He broke eye contact and put his hand on Toothless's tail. "At least I build. You just destroy."

Astrid was silent. Her face was unreadable. Finally, she spoke. "I hate you. And I hate everything you represent. That will be my legacy. Destroying you, and all that you've done. If I could bring back that giant dragon that you destroyed and make the raids start again, I would without hesitation. Just to undo what you did." She walked away, back to the chiefs. She didn't seem to see the shocked faces of some of them. Of the ones who had heard what she had said. Simon, Smith, even Norbert. They stared after her.

Toothless crooned softly. 'I don't like to think about that, the time after you're gone. We Furies live so long. And humans don't.'

Maour smiled at his brother. "Bud, we've got a long time before that happens, and I'll be happy to know my family will be around so long. My descendants will get to know you and the others, long after I'm gone. And eventually, we'll all meet again, wherever dragons end up. I'll find a way there. I promise."

Toothless nodded. 'But it still feels wrong. There should be some way I could extend your lifetime. I'd be happy to cut my lifespan in half if you could live that long too.'

Maour sighed. "I'm not sure I'd want you to do that. It would hurt both of us, I think. You would die young, for a Fury, and I would live longer than my own children. It would hurt any family either of us raised. I don't think it's possible anyway. But I appreciate and share the sentiment." He grinned, trying to break the somber mood. "Let's just make the most of the time we do have. And it's a lot, anyway. I've always said Vikings die so early because they make bad life choices. I'll probably live to be a hundred. I'm pretty sure mead, constant stress, massive obesity, and lack of regular exercise does most Vikings in. Old Gothi is over a hundred years old, they say. I'll break her record."

Toothless chuffed seriously. 'And you'll still be a rider, even then. We can tie you to the saddle if nothing else.'

Maour laughed, playfully pushing Toothless's unmoving bulk. "Come on, give me some credit. I'll tie myself to the saddle. Besides, I'm pretty sure Gothi could ride a dragon today if she had to. I won't be outdone!"

'A Gronckle, maybe. Something slow and steady.'

"Is that a challenge? Are you challenging my future self's abilities?" Maour was laughing now.

'Yes. We'll test it in eighty years or so.'

"You're on."

'As if you'll remember this next week, let alone eighty years from now.'

"Fair enough."

They were stopped by a chief, who was watching them uncertainly. "Am I... interrupting something?"

"Yes, but we don't mind." Maour ducked a slap from Toothless's tailfin. "Fine, I don't mind. You're the one who wants to be called Trott, right?"

"Yes. Of all the chiefs, it makes sense you would remember, given your somewhat odd harping over your own names." Trott's jovial tone softened the somewhat harsh words.

"It isn't harping. Where I live, names are complicated and important. Many of us have multiple names. One given by parents, which anyone can use. For my brother, for example, that would be Svartukappi. Then there are other names, given by family or friends. They can be unique to the person speaking, but usually, the family decides on one short name for the person. That name is what family and friends use when referring to that person, no matter who they're talking to. But they're the only ones who can use it."

Trott seemed intrigued. "And, following your example, what would that be for Svarturkappi?"

Maour smiled. "Toothless. Although that was a special case. Usually, it's something less embarrassing. Like, if we called him Kappi. Or maybe Cap. Really, it can be anything. One of the Furies here with us is known as Shield, despite that being an entirely unrelated concept to anything his full name implies."

"Which one? The one with the scar, or..." Trott grinned sheepishly. "The one not with the scar? Sorry, they're hard for me to tell apart."

Toothless huffed in irritation.

Maour translated. "That's a bit insulting, given one is female and the other male. But they are siblings, so it is also understandable. Einfari is a bit thinner and more curved. Shield is a bit stocky and stronger-looking, though that's mostly an illusion. To be fair, Furies also use smell to tell each other apart. So it's much more obvious to them."

Trott frowned. "How many Furies do you know, to make those generalizations?"

"I can hear them, remember? They told me this themselves." Maour hoped that put Trott off of that line of questioning.

"That is interesting. How exactly did you acquire the ability to hear them?"

Maour liked this guy. He actually asked the right questions, instead of getting hung up on the impossibility of it all. "That's tricky. You need a Night Fury, first off. And they need to match you rather closely in personality, from what I can tell, although that's probably not necessary. Heather and Einfari are very similar, as are Toothless and I. If you could ever get that far, you need a Fury who's been taught to link, something only other Furies who know can teach, or the Queen, who's dead now. And to top it all off, you and the Fury need to trust each other completely, and you have to get to that point without being able to directly communicate. Get through all of that, and the Fury can link with you. That lets you hear that dragon, among many other things. Over time, the ability to hear any dragon can be acquired, though there is a trick to that part."

Trott blinked. "That sounds impossibly unlikely."

Maour grinned. "It is. Hasn't stopped it from happening, more than once." Five times so far, though Trott didn't need to know that.

"I do have one question. If the dragons need to be taught to do this, why only Night Furies?"

Maour considered that. "They seem to be the only ones capable of it, for some reason. The Queen tried all types of dragons, but she was only able to manifest the ability in her Night Fury thralls. Which is where Toothless learned it, albeit unwillingly. The Queen was a horrific monster, whose power of the mind far exceeded anything Toothless is capable of. This linking ability is a shadow of what she could do. She could entirely invade the mind of any one of her thralls at will, rendering them a passenger in their own body, incapable of doing anything of their own free will. Anything she ordered had to be obeyed by all of her thralls, which is why the raids occurred. The Queen wanted to be fed. And so, she raided."

Trott frowned, taking all of that in. "So this Queen dragon was an alpha, of sorts. And she could use the full extent of these powers. Night Furies can use some of these powers, but only a small fraction, a harmless fraction at that."

Maour nodded. "Entirely voluntary. Neither human nor dragon can force anything from one end to the other. Voluntary reception only."

Trott really seemed confused now. "But then how does he speak to you? Can you choose not to hear him?"

Toothless seemed thunderstruck. 'He's right. I'm forcing you to hear me, at least when I speak long-distance. Just like the Queen did. But I'm not trying to, and I'm sure I can't do any of the things she could. So why does that work?"

Maour shrugged. "You raise a very good point. We don't know why. But you're right, it is odd."

"Hmm... Maybe, if the Queen is an alpha, that means Night Furies are half-alphas? Or could become alphas?" Trott smiled. "Betas, if you will."

Maour liked the sound of that. "Betas. And that's something else. Skrill hate Night Furies. They always refer to them as 'Usurpers'."

Trott nodded thoughtfully. "A title reserved for those who overthrow, or take another's rightful place. Interesting. But your brother and the others know nothing about this?"

Maour shrugged. "They are all fairly young, not even considered full adults by dragon standards, even though they're in their twenties right now. It makes sense they wouldn't know."

"Then is it possible they will manifest the full effects at a further advanced age?"

Toothless whined. 'We know we don't. But I never want to be able to do what the Queen could anyway.'

Maour translated. "He doesn't like the idea that he might ever be able to do that. That level of control over others is evil, no matter who uses it."

Trott smiled. "That is wise of both of you."

Maour wanted to know something else now. "You seem far more intelligent than most Vikings. And far less aggressive, or power-hungry. Any other chief here would at least consider the military application of a dragon with alpha powers, but you agree they are better left unused."

Trott threw his arms wide. "It is a personal failing of mine. I know too much and have seen far too much to covet power. I am chief simply because my tribe wanted me to be when we lost our last leader to pointless conflict. And so, the name Pigfeet just doesn't seem to fit me. At least Trott sounds less stupid while conveying the same general idea." He grimaced. "My tribe is still paying off the debt of having a series of aggressive idiots for leaders. Everyone around us hates us. We get attacked every other year. It will take me most of my life to smooth over relations with all of them. Power and dominance will not help me right the wrongs of my predecessors."

Maour nodded. That was why Bertha had warned him against including the Lava-Louts in the alliance. They were always being attacked. "I wish you luck with that."

Trott smiled thankfully. "And I wish you the same. Just do me a favor, please. You say Night Furies must be of a similar personality to bond with a human. If you ever run into one like me, please introduce us. I would happily welcome such a friendship, and the communication abilities it could in time provide would be very interesting."

Toothless hummed thoughtfully. 'He's kind of like an Eldur, but not really. I don't think we know anyone like him.' He almost sounded disappointed by that.

Maour offered a hand for Trott to shake. "If we ever do, I would be happy to." He really would. Although Trott probably wouldn't want to live on the Isle of Night, so any Fury like him would probably have to move to Lava-Lout island. However, that would work. If they ever found one like him, they'd deal with that then.

Trott shook his hand. "And if I ever find anything out that might be of use to you, I'll contact you. Somehow."

Maour grinned. "Give a letter to Trader Johann. He can get them to me eventually."

After that, the second night of the meeting soon wound down. Tomorrow was the last important night. The night wars were traditionally declared, and other such big announcements. Maour really hoped there were no such announcements, but he was ready.

**Reason for Removal: The first half was rewritten, and the second half just didn't make the cut. It's all a bit wooden so I would have had to rewrite it anyway, and given everything needs to be matched with the updated circumstances, it just wasn't worth doing. There are some nice tidbits on someone irrelevant here, but little else worth keeping.**

* * *

_**Another Path**_** (Chapter 27)**

"Sure, sure," Dagur agreed, waving his ax at the Order-keeper. "Off-island. Got it, old man. Anyway. Who wants to work with the Berserkers? Everyone else gets to work _for_ us, or die resisting. Such a great choice to make!"

Dagur shrugged his shoulders for no apparent reason and began to walk around the bonfire, prowling like a dangerous animal. The Chieftains treated him as such, watching warily. He had control of the situation at the moment. They were all just reacting to his insanity.

"Ally, Berserker, or death?" Dagur asked nobody in particular, staring into each Chieftain's eyes. "I'll not let some of you be allies; _some _of the tribes here need to be whipped into shape. But some of you are good as you are."

"He doesn't care that much about killing dragons," Heather murmured to Maour, not taking her eyes off of Dagur. "He wants the Berserkers to be in charge; the dragons are just a good target to aim for in the meantime, a common enemy to gather support against."

"But Astrid _does _care," Maour quietly replied. "This helps both of them anyway." It was not an elaborate, carefully rationalized plan, but it didn't have to be. Some of the tribes would ally with Dagur, and the rest would defy him, but he was strong enough to crush any individual tribe with ease, which was the entire reason Maour and the Chieftains he was on good terms with had allied in the first place. Dagur was trying to build his forces in a similar way.

"So?" Dagur asked, stopping by Mogadon. The Order-keeper was standing close by, having not moved as Dagur approached. At the moment, the mad Berserker Chief's attention was not on the Order-keeper anyway. "Serve me or die. Choose."

Mogadon stood, rising to dwarf Dagur in size and stature. "I don't have to choose anything you offer. My tribe will fight you to the death, but it will not be ours."

"The Berserker armada versus the Meathead fishing fleet," Dagur laughed. "Sounds like a good warm up!"

"I don't stand alone," Mogadon retorted.

That was their cue, though Maour had expected to be the one calling for his allies to stand with him. Mogadon taking the lead was unexpected.

"The Bog Burglars will fight you too," Bertha announced, standing to face Dagur. Camicazi was right there by her side, smiling enthusiastically.

"As do the Waxears," Aldir agreed, standing in turn. Sigvard of the Rockbreakers spoke at the same time, also affirming his commitment.

Maour stood, feeling Astrid's crazed eyes on him. He was glad she was still on the opposite side of the bonfire. He'd get at least a moment's warning from Toothless if she tried anything from that distance. "The Isle of Night stands to defend the Meatheads," he announced.

Heather stood with him, but said nothing. The glare she sent Dagur's way was enough for her, apparently.

"I'll destroy you all!" Dagur laughed maniacally. "It's war! Finally!"

"This is an official declaration of war," the Order-keeper interrupted. "Dagur, are you sure you want to do this?"

"Are you questioning me?" Dagur asked angrily, pointing his ax at the Order-keeper. "Of course!"

"Against five tribes?"

"Definitely." Dagur eyed Mogadon. "But you'll have to wait in line, Meathead. I'll come raze your island to the ground when I feel like it."

"The Berserkers have declared war on the Meatheads, Bog Burglars, Waxears, Rockbreakers, and the Isle of Night," the Order-keeper announced officiously. "But war does not start on this island. Are there any other announcements?"

Dagur smiled crookedly at Maour and the others. "None come to mind. Have fun learning what fighting real Vikings is like, weaklings." WIth that, he returned to the other side of the bonfire and said something in a low voice to Astrid. The two of them left the hilltop, followed by Savage.

"Is that all?" Bertha asked in an urgent voice. "Some of us have a war to get to."

"Well, I was going to announce a new trade deal I made with the Lava Louts," Aldir remarked dryly, "but somehow, it just doesn't feel all that important to brag about now."

"Is it over?" Heather asked in a low voice. "Already?"

"No," Bertha replied, having heard Heather, "but keep in mind that Dagur has ships circling the island, and we have to get out of here somehow. We have to leave _now_ and hope he hasn't ordered his men to attack anyone who departs."

'But that is exactly what he would do,' Toothless remarked. 'Maour, they are allies. We should defend them, right?'

"Right." As much as he didn't want to get into a fight tonight or any night, he had just committed to war against Dagur. He wasn't about to start that war by leaving his allies to fend for themselves, not when Dagur could take out the most important people opposing him in a single, easy fight. The Chieftains and their ships needed to make it safely out to the open sea.

"You'll have air support," Maour promised. "Is everyone just going to go back to their own islands after?"

"We need to plan, at least a little," Bertha grunted irritably, speaking to their entire group. "We have to meet up once we're clear of Dagur's little fleet here."

"If we get clear at all," Sigvard said, looking down at the small clusters of tents on the shore all around the island. "He's ready for this."

"And we have Night Furies evening the odds," Heather retorted. "Just get clear. Maour," she added, beginning to walk down the hill, "Einfari is picking you up in about ten seconds."

Maour walked over to an empty part of the hillside and held his arms out to either side. This was going to-

Two pairs of strong paws gripped his pauldrons and shoulders, yanking him off the ground just slowly enough that his body didn't snap from the sudden force. His back still felt like it was breaking for a long, torturous moment as Einfari got back up to speed and settled into a fast glide.

"Gotta… work on… that…" he groaned. His neck hurt like crazy, too. "That could hurt someone."

'Sorry,' Einfari whined. 'We should have tested the pickup. Heather?'

'She is fine,' Nóttreiði called out, swooping in to fly beside Einfari. 'I grabbed her at a slower speed.'

"He's right," Heather confirmed, sounding extremely relieved. Given whose claws she was dangling from, she had every reason to be pleasantly surprised. "Maour, what are we doing now?"

"Getting to Toothless, and then striking the Berserkers fast and hard." Maour knew he and Toothless could do it. "Einfari and Nóttreiði, you'll follow Toothless's lead; he knows Viking ships and how to attack them." Spending more than a decade under an always-hungry Queen had taught Toothless plenty about attacking Viking villages and ships, even if the Queen had been the one actually acting through his body. The tactics were the same either way.

'This will be easy enough,' Toothless declared as they set down on the sea stack. He ran over to Maour, licked him across the face, and leaned over to let Maour onto the saddle. Maour, still sore in his back and neck, took a second to lean forward and hopefully ease the pain, and then jumped into the saddle. They didn't have much time.

"It should be easy," Maour agreed once they were in the air. "We're lucky, really. Dagur didn't get any allies."

"How do you figure that?" Heather asked pessimistically. "That speech about uniting against the dragon menace and allying with them was a good one for a group of Vikings. He'll have half those tribes on his side."

"No, he won't," Maour argued. "They'll wait and see. If he's winning, then they'll join in. If he's losing, they'll let him burn on his own, or even join in against him." He thought he had that right. Vikings weren't afraid to fight, but they also didn't like people trying to lead them around and command them. Dagur wouldn't get any obvious support in the beginning. If he started winning, that was when the currently neutral tribes would join him.

'Focus on the here and now,' Einfari suggested. 'Last time we attacked a ship it ended badly and could have gone even worse.'

'Last time,' Toothless growled, 'you had no experience on your side. Follow my lead and don't argue.' He shot a look over at Nóttreiði, who didn't seem to notice, flying blithely on Einfari's other side.

'What is the best way to do this?' Einfari inquired. 'We want to protect the ships on our side. Do we sink all of the Berserker ships?'

"We should see what's going on first," Maour suggested, tuning in to Toothless's vision and surveying the island's shores as they got closer. The hill was low enough that he could see the entire island from their current height and distance. Or, Toothless could, which amounted to the same thing.

The Bog Burglars, Waxears, and Rockbreakers had all pulled to shore adjacent to each other on one side of the island. The Meatheads were on the far side, closest to Dagur's lead ship. The rest of the Berserker ships were still circling like carrion birds above a fresh corpse, just waiting for something worth attacking to come out into the open water. There was activity on the decks of the ships of both allies and enemies, and it looked like the Bog Burglars were already weighing anchor, though Maour could only tell it was their ship due to the flag, which was clearly visible with a Night Fury's eyes, even in the dark. Most Viking ships were similar in build and looks.

'Four ships to protect, seven enemy ships,' Nóttreiði summarized tersely.

'We should sink a few right now,' Einfari proposed.

'Right now, while they're nowhere near our allies,' Toothless agreed. 'Maour?'

"If you can do it without getting shot at, go for it." Sinking ships was perfect. He didn't even have to wonder whether they would be killing people; the island was within swimming distance, and shooting at the waterline was the obvious way to use their shots efficiently, meaning nobody would die directly from their shots.

But should he care? This was war, and Toothless's advice about a hand to hand fight also applied here, in the long term. If these Berserkers just lost their ships, they might be back to fight again eventually, and that might mean they would get a chance to stab him from behind, metaphorically speaking.

At least in this case it didn't matter whether Maour wanted to kill the Berserkers preparing to attack his allies. The best course of action was the same either way.

Toothless led the other two dragons down close to the water, not quite skimming the waves, but below where the deck would be on any normal ship, just low enough that anyone watching for dragons would be looking in entirely the wrong direction. Maour knew very well that in this fight, he was an extra mind and a tailfin, not another warrior. It was fitting, in a way. Toothless had chosen to sit out the final meeting, and now he was getting to fight anyway, while Maour helped him fly and watched, when it was possible he would have had to fight on the island.

That would have been horrible. Maour could envision a version of Dagur's little speech that culminated in him killing somebody, probably the Order-keeper, and driving the entire meeting into chaos as everyone struck first and justified their actions later. As it was, Maour was surprised the Order-keeper had lived through both being kidnapped by Berserkers and telling Dagur to his face that his men had been executed for said kidnapping. Then again, the man probably had to be pretty tough to discipline other Vikings, regardless of the other consequences.

'We go in low, we fire two shots at the place where the wood meets the water, and we move on,' Toothless instructed. 'Einfari and Nóttreiði, I want you to take turns. One of you will fire, and one will watch from above. Switch with every ship. I will be firing on the other side each time.'

"Heather," Maour added, "lie low and don't make any noise. There's nothing either of us can do with this." Really, Einfari should have left Heather on the sea stack when she had the chance. At the moment, Heather was just vulnerable extra weight. It was too late now.

The water rushed by beneath Toothless as he flew straight for the side of the closest Berserker ship. 'Nóttreiði first,' he declared. 'Get into position. I am taking the left.'

Nóttreiði pulled over to the right without complaint, and Einfari rose up into the air, taking a high view to watch the chaos. The ship, a dark blob topped with light, loomed in the distance, growing larger with every second.

Toothless inhaled, and the eerie noise Maour knew and had grown to love, the harbinger of purple fire and perfect aim, screeched through the dark sky. Toothless and Nóttreiði fired simultaneously, and in the next instant Toothless was hurtling past his own explosion, water and shards of wood impacting both him and Maour.

'Next time I will pull away quicker,' Toothless said sheepishly as they cleared the suddenly crippled Berserker ship. 'On to the next one!' he roared excitedly.

"You're enjoying this!" Maour observed, not at all bothered by that. He felt the thrill of hitting and running, the same thrill flight through any kind of obstacle course brought. Sure, it was war, and war was terrible, but this moment was not so bad. It would cease to be fun the instant something went wrong, but until then there was no harm in enjoying the rush.

'I actually get to do something!' Toothless replied happily. 'No more waiting, no more worrying, no more being forced to let them strike first if anyone is to strike at all!'

'Next ship,' Einfari called out as a reminder, drifting down in to take Nóttreiði's place by Toothless's side. 'Do not get overconfident. That is what did us in last time.'

'Got it.' Toothless silenced his roar and powered forward, circling around in an arc to approach the next ship. They were coming from behind so as to maximize the element of surprise.

Another pass, this one pulled out of with room to spare, and the second ship was down. Heather whooped in excitement as she and Einfari neared Maour and Toothless. "This is easy!"

It was easy, at that. Maour didn't like it being too easy, too predictable. "Toothless, let's skip the next one and come back for it." They could afford to spend a little time being less predictable. He worried somebody smarter than average on one of the ships they had yet to target would get the idea to just fire blindly at the water. Going out of order in what they targeted would be safer.

'Got it. Einfari?'

'I heard. Nóttreiði wants to watch over, so I'll be taking every shot,' Einfari replied, looking up at the Night Fury flying above them. 'I don't know why. He did fine on his first shot.'

The three dragons flew out around the third ship and forward to the fourth, and blasted it from both sides. Then they headed out to-

'No, that's one of our friends!' Toothless roared, pulling out of his firing run with a few seconds to spare. 'Einfari!'

'Heather told me, I know!'

'On to the next one!'

Flying around and shooting ships was all well and good, but as they headed for what would be their fourth actual target, Maour found himself wanting to see what was going on overall. This wasn't going to work very well if the ships they hadn't hit yet managed to attack their allies. Down here, he had no idea what was going on with the larger conflict. There was only water and whatever ship was directly in their line of sight.

Another attack, another rush of fire, flight, and indistinct cries of shock and anger from the ship-

A splash sounded behind them, distinct in that it was very close despite their speed. Maour looked back in time to see another net striking the water below where they had been.

"They're catching on!" he relayed worriedly. "They just fired nets where they thought we would be." He wouldn't have thought the Berserkers would figure out that trying to see a target was worthless, at least not this quickly. Them firing where they thought Toothless would be was far less predictable and more dangerous.

'They almost hit Einfari; this is too dangerous to continue!' 'Nóttreiði roared down at them.

'I am fine, but that was close,' Einfari admitted. 'But this is war, it is dangerous.'

"Toothless, bring me up. I want to see what's happening," Maour requested. In moments, all three dragons were flying higher in the sky, angling toward the cloudy, dark sky.

The first thing Maour noticed was that none of the Berserker ships had actually sunk. The four they hit were listing but not irreversibly damaged. "Two shots aren't enough to sink a ship."

'But they are enough to cripple said ship, and that was all we needed to do,' Einfari replied. 'Look. Our allies are all getting away.'

Maour had noticed that, too, which was why he wasn't rushing to figure out what they needed to do next. The Bog Burglars were entirely away, and the Waxears were getting there, pulling out in front of the Berserker ship they had managed to maneuver around. The Rockbreakers were also gaining distance, leaving behind a Berserker ship Toothless and the others hadn't hit yet.

"Who's the fifth one?" Heather asked Maour.

"What fifth one?" Maour could see all seven Berserker ships, and the…

She was right. There were _five _ships making a break for it, not four. Another ship, somewhat more rickety than the rest, was sailing away with the Meatheads, leaving a strangely well-lit Berserker ship in their wake.

The sail had no insignia, but the patchwork state of the ship revealed who it was. But why would Alvin be fleeing? Dagur hadn't declared war on him.

'I do not think we blasted that ship,' 'Nóttreiði growled. 'It is burning, not sinking. At least these humans have taken out _one _enemy on their own.'

That was why it was so well-lit. It was burning. Maour was beginning to see what had happened. Mogadon and Alvin had, between them, picked off the Berserker ship closest to them, boarded it, and set it alight. With Vikings, that meant they had also killed off most or all of the crew, as someone would be fighting the spreading fires if there was anyone left to do so.

"Which ship had Dagur on it?" Heather asked, looking down at the burning one.

"The one that hasn't even weighed anchor yet," Maour replied, dashing her obvious hopes. Something had gone wrong on the Berserker lead ship, and they weren't making good time. Maybe the Order-keeper had executed enough Berserkers that the lead ship was short on sailors.

'So… Both of our biggest enemies are on that ship?' Toothless asked. 'Maour, If there was ever a time to strike first, this is it. We can end this war before it starts.'

Maour stared down at the ship that was just now beginning to move. Dagur had declared war. This _was _war. And if they could end it here and now…

"What's the safest way to totally destroy that ship?" It didn't matter whether he would regret it later. If they passed this chance up, every death this coming war wrought would be on his head. They had to try.

'We go for it right now,' Toothless replied, flying over the ship in question. 'But we pull out of the first dive early, without shooting, to see what they have ready for us.'

'I'm in.' 'Nóttreiði spoke seriously. 'Sister, stay up here.'

'I am going.'

'You have extra weight and might throw it off,' 'Nóttreiði countered. 'This is a dive, not a level flight.'

'Maour and Toothless are going.'

'I don't care what they do.' That seemed to be the end of the discussion, as Einfari glided away in a huff. Heather seemed just as annoyed, judging by the way she sat stiffly in her saddle, arms crossed.

"I don't have to remind you to compensate for my weight," Maour quipped as they got into position to dive. "Right?"

'Maybe if you had any weight to start with,' Toothless joked back. 'Ready?'

"Let's do this." Maour looked down at the deck of the ship below, hoping to see Astrid or Dagur. If they were going to do this, he wanted to be sure-

"No, not ready," he corrected urgently. "Look at that. On the deck."

'What… Oh, I see it.' Toothless roared at 'Nóttreiði. 'Don't go, they're ready for us!'

Ten Berserkers were spread across the deck of the ship, all armed with crossbows, and all aiming directly upward. There were more looking out to either side of the ship, also armed with crossbows.

'Why are we not going?' 'Nóttreiði asked disagreeably.

"Crossbows," Maour replied. "Aimed up. The second they hear us diving, they'll all just fire straight up. You or Toothless might get a bolt to the face or chest." He _didn't _like how easily they had just been prevented from striking; there was no way to get close enough to effectively fire on the ship without risking casualties. Enemies that aimed were avoidable, but enemies that just fired in a set direction were far more dangerous, because they could be arrayed to cover all angles.

Astrid was down there, looking up into the sky. Maour recognized her blond hair and angry, eager pacing. This was her doing, he was sure. She killed dragons.

"Let's just make sure our allies all make it away safely," he decided, looking away from the ship. This war was going to be dangerous, and they weren't stopping it that easily.

**Reason for Removal: This one really was removed, as it actually made it to being published for a few hours before I decided it wasn't good enough. Really, it just didn't feel right, for a number of reasons. **

* * *

_**Too Far, Even for a Myrkur **_**(Chapter 31)**

Ruffnut swung her fist forward, only to find herself tumbling after it, and cursed wildly as her side hit the wooden deck. A boot impacted her side, driving the wind out of her.

"Had enough?" Camicazi asked impishly, planting a foot on her back and leaning down.

Ruffnut grinned through the pain and pulled her leg up and back, just flexible enough to impact where she had guessed the back of Camicazi's knee was, buckling the leg holding her down just long enough to roll over-

And then the boot stamped down on her stomach, driving the wind out of her. Camicazi was still smiling smugly. "Saw that one coming."

Ruffnut held up both hands and performed the Thorston-spiting gesture she and Tuffnut had recently invented, knowing that Camicazi would have no idea what it meant.

"I think that means 'I yield' given you only use it when I win,' Camicazi guessed, stepping back and allowing Ruffnut to recover. "Are you telling me that I'm number one?"

"You know… Very well… That it's an insult," Ruffnut panted, sitting up despite feeling as if she could just lie there a while longer.

"But not what it means, so I get to pretend I don't know that," Camicazi replied smugly. Everything about the girl screamed 'smug' to Ruffnut. Aside from that admittedly annoying quirk, she was all that Ruffnut had anticipated. That was one of the reasons Ruffnut never intended to tell her what the gesture meant; as long as Camicazi didn't know for sure, she wouldn't risk using it for fear of Ruffnut changing the meaning on her.

"Ready for round…" Ruffnut stood, trying to think back as she did. "Fourteen?" She hadn't been keeping count.

"Six," Camicazi supplied. "No, let's take a break."

"Fine." Ruffnut had no intention of leaving it on a losing bout, but she could wait a little bit before continuing. "Now what?"

"Well, I think they'll be bringing your dragon up soon," Camicazi said idly, leaning against the railing that ran along the edge of the deck, toying with one of her knives as she did. "We can't miss that."

"No, no we cannot." Ruffnut would never forgive herself if she missed too much of Myrkurvængur's ongoing humiliation in the name of keeping their allies happy. She was only up here instead of belowdecks with him now because there was only so much girly activity she could take before she tried to kill something to balance it out.

"Maybe we should move on to knife-fighting once this gets old," Camicazi suggested, still toying with one of the expensive-looking blades she carried around.

"Save that for when we're really bored," Ruffnut decided. "This is going to be a long trip. We're not even halfway there." If they escalated to trying to stab each other this early on, the trip would end with them each taking charge of a ship and waging all-out war. As cool as that would be, she had a feeling Bertha would step in and shut it down too early for it to be worth doing.

The sound of waves sloshing against the hull of the ship was the only thing that could be heard for a while. Ruffnut rolled her shoulders and felt the many bruises all across her torso. At this rate, she would be forced to sit around and recover for a few days. Camicazi was very good at fighting dirty.

Then a very put-upon voice broke the silence, at least for her. 'This has to be the last one.'

Ruffnut was surprised in spite of herself; Myrkurvængur had to be near the end of his rope if she could hear his mental voice from here without him trying to be loud. She had outdone herself with this one, though she really couldn't claim all the credit. Who knew a tribe of all-women warriors would be amiable to-

A very strained roar erupted from under the deck, muffled but not silenced by the wood between them and him.

"She doesn't sound happy," Camicazi remarked, looking down at the wood under her boots. "What do you think they came up with this time?"

"Something great," Ruffnut asserted confidently. This prank was exceeding her wildest expectations. "Are all Bog Burglars like this, or did we pick the best ship?"

"I have a personal detachment of warriors that I'm supposed to travel with," Camicazi admitted. "They're all older women who are supposed to keep me in check."

"But-" Ruffnut began.

"So of course, I do everything I can to never spend a second around them except for when we're actually in battle," Camicazi continued. "This ship is the one all the newest warriors travel on when we set out as a tribe. They're all fresh off of initiation and haven't had to act like the crudest of men for years on end just to make the warriors of other tribes take them seriously."

"So, we _did _pick the best possible ship for entertainment purposes," Ruffnut concluded with a sly grin.

At that moment, the hatch in the middle of the deck popped open, swinging upward. A horned helmet poked up from the depths of the ship. "We're done!"

"Bring her up!" Camicazi commanded, waving her hand. "Let's see what your team came up with!"

Ruffnut snickered at that, too. What better way to get everyone trying their hardest than to make it a competition? She deserved all the credit for that detail, even if the Bog Burglars were doing all of the actual work.

Moments later, Myrkurvængur's nose poked up above the lip of the hatch, twitching furiously. Already, Ruffnut could see hints of what was to come. 'Ruffnut, tell them to put me back to normal,' he requested. 'I don't like this.'

"Come on up," Ruffnut called out in reply. "This is the last one, just let us see and then we can judge and the competition is over." She couldn't let on just how much she was enjoying his misery; he might figure out that she was pulling a prank if she was too obvious. He was still a Myrkur, and not totally gullible. Just gullible _enough_.

'I'll make your life miserable if you ever tell anyone about this,' Myrkurvængur threatened, creeping above deck and sticking low to the ground.

Despite her best intentions, Ruffnut felt her jaw drop. She had no words for the amazing abomination in front of her. Luckily, she wasn't the one who had to judge it.

"Hildegarde, what did you do to her?" Camicazi asked incredulously. "She doesn't look like she likes it at all."

"Well," the named Viking responded, coming up the hatch after Myrkurvængur, "first we tried to paint her scales pink, but we ran out of pink dye halfway through. So, we used orange dye for the rest and tried to blend it."

"You get to explain to the Chief why we don't have all of our camouflage dyes when she finds out," Camicazi remarked. "Then?"

"Well, we took some of the false beards from our disguise kits and wove them together to go over her head like a wig. We can disconnect those, so don't worry."

"And the pointy scales?" Ruffnut asked, unable to help herself.

"The same gunk we use to give ourselves fake warts if needed," Hildegarde explained. "We have a lot, so we were able to mix some with the dyes and add it to her face to make her shapelier."

"And you did an excellent job," Ruffnut commented, eyeing the decidedly emphasized ridges around the eyes and big, pouty false lips. None of it really looked like it belonged, though it was close enough to throw one off for a moment, but she supposed that was inevitable. She had been surprised to find out Bog Burglars did disguises at all, given their reputation was for pure stealth. Between the makeshift wig, pink-orange coloring, and aforementioned physical shaping, Myrkurvængur looked like he was trying to pass as a Viking woman, but failing miserably.

"I mean," Camicazi began, walking in a slow circle around Myrkurvængur, "if you were going for a complete 'Viking woman' disguise, you failed miserably. She's naked and looks like a wax figure that got tossed into a fire and remolded. But if you were going for 'pink and orange abomination,' you did amazingly. Either way, the idea was to make her look good."

"We started out trying to do that, but right about when the dye ran out, we decided to just run with it," Hildegarde admitted. "Nobody could top the first group."

Ruffnut didn't agree; in her opinion, the first group had been the least interesting. They had done very little, just adding some yellow highlights after polishing and shining his scales. Every one after that had been more creative and more entertaining.

"Ruffnut," Myrkurvængur whined, "make them take it all off."

Ruffnut hated the small twinge of pity that tainted her enjoyment of the moment and her prank, but she couldn't ignore it. "I think that's enough," she found herself saying. "Clean her off before she jumps in the ocean to do it herself."

"I thought you said she couldn't swim very well," Camicazi objected.

"She can't," Ruffnut replied seriously.

Camicazi frowned. "Okay, get to it. I'll announce the winner tonight, once I've had time to think it over."

"Thanks for being a good sport," Hildegarde said, getting Myrkurvængur's attention by lifting the makeshift wig off.

'Only because we need allies against the other humans,' Myrkurvængur grumbled, following Hildegarde over to the wet spot on the far side of the deck that had been used to sluice him off previously.

"She _really _doesn't seem to like that sort of thing," Camicazi remarked, watching as Myrkurvængur was freed from his unwanted decorations.

"We probably shouldn't do this again," Ruffnut agreed. Myrkurvængur would only take so much before snapping, and she _was _going to have to face him once this was all over, assuming she couldn't keep him in the dark about just how unnecessary this was forever. As long as she kept it secret until she had Boom ready to fly her away, it would be fine.

"It's not that," Camicazi continued, looking over at Ruffnut. "You have a very different way of doing things. With Maour, it was asking and listening to the dragon, and then deciding together. Here, it seems to be you telling her what to do."

"Yeah, but only because she's the little sister of her family," Ruffnut explained. "I wouldn't be ordering her around if she took the initiative. You think I could have forced her to do this?" Of course, that was ignoring the very potent force of 'do it or else everyone at home will blame you for losing one fourth of our allies' on her side lending authority to her words as long as she framed it right.

"I think she didn't want to do this," Camicazi observed, "and it was all just to have something to do, so you forced her to for our amusement, basically."

"You have a problem with that?" Ruffnut asked, feeling just a little guilty.

"Yes, I do." Camicazi crossed her arms. "I like Maour's way better. Look over there." She jerked her head over at Myrkurvængur.

Ruffnut looked, just to humor Camicazi, and saw Myrkurvængur, now back to normal, shaking himself vigorously. He still looked put-upon and stressed, if she judged by his ears, but to the uninformed observer, he would look relieved to be clean, and nothing more.

"Sisters in battle don't push each other down," Camicazi said sternly. "I get that you might not see it as a problem, but aren't you supposed to ride her into combat? Can you honestly tell me she will want to protect you after this? Even if it is a small grudge, it's still a grudge, and an unnecessary one."

"I thought you were fun," Ruffnut muttered rebelliously.

"Don't make friends with someone trained her whole life to lead and expect to be praised for abusing your underlings," Camicazi retorted. "Anyone with a grain of common sense knows that's not how it's done if you want to inspire loyalty, and Maour made it very clear that there's no difference in intelligence. I'm not happy you made my people a part of it."

Ruffnut crossed her arms, annoyed. Camicazi didn't even know the whole story, which made her words ring even more true, to an extent. She was making Myrkurvængur miserable for fun, and at the rate she was going, he would hate her when he found out…

But she didn't like being told she was wrong, not by someone who didn't even know the Myrkur dynamics, so she didn't outright admit that Camicazi was right. "Maybe you should keep your nose out of another tribe's business."

"Keep it up, and I'll ask if your dragon would like a change in tribe," Camicazi threatened, looking over at Myrkurvængur. "Something tells me that if I promised to treat her how she wanted, it would tempt her."

"His mom would kill him for running away," Ruffnut retorted. Then she realized what she had said.

"_His_?" Camicazi repeated in confusion.

"Just a slip of the tongue, I'm used to talking about my brother," Ruffnut improvised.

"Not buying it," Camicazi replied, glaring at Ruffnut. "You do know we don't care, right? You're not in our tribe."

"Don't tell him that," Ruffnut warned, laying out her true intentions more out of a lack of alternatives than anything. "This is my payback for being stuck with him on this trip, and for him trying to pull me into the water when we got here. And I'm teaching him to question authority too, so it's for his own good. He's way too pliable as it is. This will toughen him up."

Camicazi looked over at Myrkurvængur, who was now curling up in an out of the way corner of the deck. "Gods, you're a jerk. There are less humiliating ways to do that."

"Yup," Ruffnut agreed. "But this way is fun, too."

"So long as you know. And I want to hear it from Maour that you're not this bad to him normally."

"Done. I'm going to pay for all of this once Vængur finds out what I'm doing, anyway." Ruffnut felt that she was getting back on to less unstable footing with Camicazi, so she kept going. "He'll get me back twice as bad, somehow, and I'll probably be punished by his parents if he decides to tell them. It'll all end up even eventually, and we'll be good. That's just how Myrkurs work."

"I'll be looking forward to seeing his revenge," Camicazi decided.

Ruffnut was looking forward to it too, though with more dread than anticipation. She knew she was going to pay dearly for this, even if Camicazi made sure her people didn't accept any other offers that humiliated Myrkurvængur in the name of inter-tribal relations.

_**Reason for Removal: **_**Unique in that this **_**wasn't **_**from the first draft but also didn't get published and then retracted, I knew I wasn't going to be keeping this scene before I was even done writing it. It has the feel of being in the middle of an actual arc, paints Ruffnut in far too cruel of a light, involves half-baked character development for Camicazi that isn't handled well and feels abrupt… Really, this scene was a failure from the start. Not because it wasn't good, but because it didn't fit with the rest of the story. Ruffnut isn't usually depicted as cruel, and this isn't the main focus of the story. It adds weight where weight shouldn't be and detracts from the actual plot at far too late a stage to be corrected. I only finished it to this extent (and it's not actually finished, there would have to be more after this bit, and plenty before it, for this to really work) because I was interested in seeing where the argument led. Past actually seeing Myrkurvængur's humiliation, I knew I was only writing out of curiosity because I could see no satisfactory continuation that fit with the rest of the story, and thus had to discard that important consideration in order to continue.**

**Basically, it just doesn't work. The actual story's version of this scene is far more in-line with everything else, and far more lighthearted to boot. I have no regrets in regard to trashing 2,500 words immediately after writing them, at least in this case.**


	49. Deleted Scenes III

_**Author's Note: **_**Within a day of posting this chapter, **_**Living Anonymously **_**will surpass 50,000 views in total. That's quite the landmark (though not as big a landmark as **_**Living Vicariously **_**passing 100,000, which should happen before the end of August at the current rate).**

**But that's not why we're here. It's time for the third set of deleted, removed, or otherwise nixed scenes. As before, here's a table of contents to help make sense of it all:**

_**Peaceful Promises of Violence **_**(Chapter 23)**

_**Alternate Assignments **_**(Chapter 24)**

_**Night Strike **_**(Chapter 24)**

_**Newlywed Bonding Exercise **_**(Chapter 25)**

_**Peaceful Promises of Violence **_**(Chapter 23)**

* * *

Noon came and went slowly, so slowly. The tension aboard the Bog-Burglar's ship was thick. Bertha knew better than Smith or Mogadon how precarious their situation was. As such, Maour and his friends spent the day with her, to at least share the company of someone as nervous as they were.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the sun reluctantly slid below the horizon. Maour and Toothless were off in a flash, making it to the hilltop in seconds. Then there was another period of waiting, as the chiefs filed in. Maour noticed that Smith had traded seats with the Visithugs to Maour's right, and Mogadon already had the log next to Bertha. The four allied chiefs would stand together, literally and figuratively. Not that anyone knew of their alliance yet. It would be announced at the end of tonight if nothing called it into effect first.

Smith smiled nervously, making sure his daughter was still next to him and hadn't wandered off. He needn't have bothered. Kim was playing a game with Toothless, who was entirely happy to do anything to pass the time. The two were taking turns making faces at each other. The goal seemed to be to get the other to laugh.

Maour smiled as Toothless grinned, popping his teeth up and down. He had never known Toothless had control over the top and bottom teeth separately, but he apparently did. As the top slid down, so did the bottom, and vice versa. It looked ridiculous, and Kim was soon in tears of laughter.

The Order-Keeper looked over at them. He tried to hide a smile at Toothless's ridiculous expression. "If you two don't mind, we are about to begin."

Toothless and Kim abruptly stopped and sent him identical stares of annoyance. But they brought their attention back to the gathering at hand. Toothless subtly tensed as he recalled why they were there, and Kim scooted closer to her father.

The Order-Keeper cleared his throat. "Very good. This is the last official night of the meeting. Of course, you can all loiter afterward, if you wish. No need to rush. Tonight, the main announcements, if there are any, will be made. Wars, alliances, that sort of thing. Really, any big announcement you chiefs feel everyone should hear."

Dagur immediately jumped to his feet, grinning. "I have not one, but two! Two announcements, both great. Well, great for me!"

"Well, get on wi' it! We're waitin'." Alvin was not impressed by Dagur's enthusiasm.

Dagur scowled at him. "Don't ruin the moment, Al." He turned to the Berkians. "First I am happy to announce that I am no longer single! The lovely Astrid Hofferson and I have gotten engaged!" He smiled at Astrid, who laughed at him. Her eyes were cold, and she spared a long glance over at Maour.

'You've got to be kidding.' Toothless was extremely dismayed by that particular announcement.

Maour shared the sentiment, but he couldn't say anything. He put a few things together at that moment. Dagur liked Astrid because she was like him. Dagur had wanted a second-in-command for his armada. Astrid wanted to hunt dragons to extinction. Dagur had a grudge against the dragon rider Astrid hated above all else. And Astrid would do anything to further her goals. He should have seen this coming a mile away. It fit both of their motives perfectly. Dagur got a perfectly crazy wife and ally, and Astrid got a massive armada perfect for hunting dragons. Which, unbeknownst to her, was already extremely close to his home. This had gone from bad to catastrophic.

Alvin smirked condescendingly, his voice carrying just a hint of anger. "A fitting match. But aren't the 'offersons supposed to approve tha'?" He seemed amused.

Dagur laughed mockingly. "Usually, yes. But chief Snotty here has negotiated all of the details in their stead. He gets to break the news, too." He grinned at Snotlout. "Have fun with that. And try to avoid the axes they throw at you for marrying off their daughter for them."

Astrid stood, grinning. "And you are all invited to the wedding. We don't exactly know when it will be, but we do know the place." Her eyes were dead and cold. She made eye contact with Maour. "The Isle of Night. Once we've killed the current inhabitants, burned the entire island to the rocks, and salted the earth."

Dagur pulled out his ax. "And that brings us to the other thing. The Berserker tribe is declaring war on the Isle of Night. If any of you know where it is, that would make an excellent wedding gift. We think we know where to start looking, but it would save time."

The Order-Keeper stepped in, his voice sad. "The Berserkers have declared war on the Isle of Night. By our tradition, does the Isle of Night have any allies?" He didn't sound hopeful.

Maour stood, and Toothless snarled threateningly. "The Isle of Night does not stand alone."

Bertha, Smith, and Mogadon all stood, unsheathing their weapons to symbolize their willingness to fight. Mogadon spoke for them all. "We are all honor-bound to defend any member of our defensive alliance that is attacked. We stand with them."

The Order-Keeper tried to maintain his facade of calm. "That means that if this is finalized, the Berserkers have declared war on the Isle of Night, Meatheads, Bog-Burglars, and Waxears. Are any other tribes going to get involved, or is that it?"

Dagur was glaring at Snotlout, who was eyeing Mogadon. And then Alvin, for some reason. Snotlout shook his head. "I didn't sign up for this. Berk takes no sides in this fight." He grinned as Astrid glared at him. "I'd be a bit more scared of you if I hadn't just married you off to another island. Not much you can do to me now."

Dagur shrugged. "We didn't need you anyway." He looked around. "Anyone else?"

Trott smiled apologetically at Maour.

Maour waved him off. "It's fine. You have enough to deal with yourself."

"I still wish you luck. Hopefully, you won't need it."

The Order-Keeper was about to speak, but he was interrupted.

"Ah, why the 'ell not? I'm in." Alvin leered at Dagur before saying the rest. "I'm in, against the Berserkers." He looked at Maour. "I might as well. You four defend, and I'll raze Berserker island to the ground in the meantime. Good plunder there, and no defenses with 'im at war."

Dagur was speechless. He had bad blood with Alvin, but this was a bit much. "Why? I mean, you hated Stoick, but you defend his son? Not exactly consistent, are you Al?"

Alvin glared at Dagur. "Stoick and I had a rivalry that went a bit far, and you just got betrothed to the woman that 'elped a spineless worm kill 'im. I'm not defendin' his son, I'm attackin' you. This is just a great reason to do it."

The Order-Keeper waited a moment, but that seemed to be everyone. "So, the Berserkers are at war with everyone I mentioned, plus the Outcasts. With no allies." He looked at Dagur. "This is the aggressor's one chance to take it back, and everyone can pretend it didn't happen. What say you, Dagur?"

Maour had a sinking feeling that even with Alvin, it wouldn't be enough. Dagur was smart, but the crazy in this case probably outweighed that. There was another trait Dagur and Astrid shared. They got really crazy when thwarted. This definitely counted. He braced himself.

"We'll end all of them. The Berserkers are strong! I'm not taking this one back. We'll destroy the Isle of Night first, and then move on to the next enemy, and the next, and so on. None of your tribes will exist when I'm done!" Dagur was screaming now. Astrid stood by his side.

The Order-Keeper sighed. "So be it. The Berserkers are now at war with five tribes. At the same time." He looked around. "Any other announcements?"

Trott smiled. "I was going to announce that the Lava-Louts are entering into a trade deal with the Hysterics, but that doesn't seem so important now, at least by comparison. I think we're probably done here."

Bertha stood. "Well said. Now, if you'll excuse us, we have to plan how to defend our people from two maniacs and an armada." She pushed her way out of the circle and made her way down the hill.

Camicazi whispered to each of the chiefs in the alliance before following her mother. "Bertha says we should meet on her ship, as she brought a few more Burglars than necessary, for protection. It's the safest place right now." The peace still technically held for the moment... but accidents happened. Best to be prepared.

Smith and Mogadon nodded wordlessly and began the trek down the hill. Maour stayed, and after a moment approached Alvin.

Alvin waved him off. "Ah, I don't mind you. You do what ye have to. I'll make sure Dagur has to watch the home front. I owe him one. And Snotlout, but that can wait." He grinned. "Besides, you might be the only person I've ever known to Outcast themselves before their chief could get the chance. You may not be one o' mine, but I respect that."

Maour nodded. "Thank you." He and Toothless vaulted into the sky from the outer edge of the hilltop.

* * *

"Well, we're in it now." Mogadon wasn't happy. He was pacing across the deck of Bertha's ship. "Boy, now would be a great time to hear about your military forces."

Maour nodded. "The Isle of Night has no ships. We have something better. As of now, our combat-ready forces consist of fourteen Night Furies, sixteen in dire cases, and five riders, counting myself."

Mogadon whistled. "Fourteen Night Furies. Not bad. All combat-trained? And how do you plan on directing fourteen dragons with five riders?"

Bertha scoffed at him. "They direct themselves, Mogadon. Hasn't that gotten through your skull yet?" She had been fully convinced of that for a while.

Smith frowned. "Alright, we can work with that. I can send a bit more than half of my forces in aid if I know where to send them. That's about ten ships."

Bertha nodded thoughtfully. "As can I, adding another twelve." She smiled. "With Bog-Burglar crews, meaning my ships are stealthy and quick. We need them to be. Think of us as a hit and run group."

Mogadon scowled. "I can spare nine of my offensive ships. Crewed by the finest Meathead warriors."

Maour tallied it up. "Alvin will be going after Berserker island, so that makes thirty-one ships to our aid, ten normal, twelve light and fast, and nine heavy if I know the Meatheads. And over a dozen of the deadliest dragon in the archipelago, along with five riders, who are a bit different compared to normal humans. Nothing too major strategically speaking, but helpful in communication." He looked around. "Do we know how many ships Dagur has all told?"

Bertha nodded. "I set Camicazi to find that out. Savage likes to talk, apparently."

Camicazi grinned. "When he's drunk and thinks it's harmless to brag to a little girl. I'm not sure if he even remembers that now." She pulled out a piece of parchment. "I wrote it down. Altogether, the Berserker fleet is eighty ships. But twenty of them are small, not really meant for combat. They're crewed by about a dozen men apiece, ranging from raw recruits to seasoned veterans. There are eight here, and apparently, Dagur lost the crew to one recently. Savage complained about the four ships still being repaired too. So that means thirteen are here or Berserker island. Odds are those will stay because of Alvin. But apparently, the rest of the fleet is somewhere in the South. Which, by deduction, means that those ships total sixty-seven in number. They're about two weeks out that way."

Smith smiled. "Good. It will take them forever to actually get to wherever the Isle of Night is. If they can even find it. Where is it, anyway?"

Toothless and Maour winced. "I'm not allowed to say yet. But it's far too close to that armada for comfort. That's how we found Heather. One of their boats stopped at our island to restock on fresh water."

Mogadon scowled. "When will we be allowed to know?"

"The second I get these treaties ratified, you can know. But for now, just set sail for Mahelmetan. It's a good central island in that area, and one the Berserkers haven't looked at, from what I know. Before you get there, a rider will find you and redirect you to the Isle itself. We travel really fast, remember? We'll catch up to you before you're halfway there."

Bertha brought out a big map, one that reached as far South as Mahelmetan. "We'll do that. Dagur will have to make his way out there anyway, to take control of the Armada, so we'll both get there at almost the same time. Maybe a few weeks after Dagur. We have to go home and rally our people first. You'll be on your own for a couple of weeks until we arrive."

"I know. Our best asset during that time is that they don't know where we are. We'll pick off every Berserker ship we catch alone, thin them out. But that might not be very many. We're vulnerable to ships that are wary or traveling in formation. That's where things get tricky for an all-air force."

Smith smiled. "And that's where our forces come in. They can't watch the skies if they have to deal with us too."

"Exactly. We'll discuss actual combat plans at the Isle." Maour took in the scene. Three chieftains, all planning to sail to his people's aid, and one not present, acting as a thorn in Dagur's side simply because he wanted to, whatever past he had. "Thank you, all of you. We wouldn't survive this without your help. Astrid has promised to make me watch as she kills everyone I love. We're going to make her eat those words." Toothless walked over to Maour, purring. Maour smiled at him. "We're going to leave for the Isle right now. I would advise you also leave in the night. I don't trust Dagur. He might 'peacefully' keep you here, to prevent you from doing anything."

"We will. Safe travels." Bertha spoke for all of them.

"And for you too. I'll see all of you soon." With that, Maour and Toothless took off, heading for the sea stack that the others were waiting on. They didn't even bother to land, simply circling it as Toothless shouted 'we're going home, right now!'

Einfari, Shield, and Heather had already been prepared to leave, and simply took off, following Toothless as he struck out towards their distant destination. They had already planned a route, and none of this was unexpected.

'So, how'd it go?' Einfari was nervous.

'Badly. Dagur and Astrid are planning on getting married on our graves, and even Alvin deciding to take a stab at Dagur's island while he's away didn't stop him. But our allies are coming to help.'

"Great. So, we just go home and get ready?" Heather hefted her ax.

"Yes, as quickly as possible. Heather, you're wearing a heavy coat, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

Maour grimaced. "We need to move as fast as possible. We can cut a few stops off of our trip, skipping them entirely. But it involves flying at super high altitudes all night, and so the coat. You really don't want to try this without one." Maour knew that sleep-flying would shave several days off of the trip, but he would never enjoy the process.

"I'll be fine." Heather knew they couldn't waste time. This would be a trying few weeks, but she could manage.

_**Reason for Removal**_**: The title says it all, really. Peaceful? Dagur and by extension Astrid are declaring war, and I expected everyone to believe they'd just play nice and let the enemy leave? There were so many problems with this scene, and by the time I reached the same point in rewriting, I barely even worked off of the bare bones of this.**

* * *

_**Alternate Assignments **_**(Chapter 24)**

Toothless snorted, nosing Maour up from his spot on the floor. 'Come on, let's go talk to Fishlegs and Berg. They'll have more information for us, hopefully. And we need to send out riders to the ships heading our way, to direct them here.'

Maour sighed, following his brother. "Duty calls, I suppose. Or an overeager brother. Hard to tell the difference." He effortlessly dodged Toothless's half-hearted swipe of the tail.

'You know we need to be proactive.' Toothless said this as he left the cave, Maour following. 'We have to be ready. And I've been thinking. We should whittle down Dagur's armada as much as possible before he gets here.'

Maour agreed with that. But it would be difficult, and dangerous. He thought about it as they sought Fishlegs out, finding him and Berg at the entrance to the Eldur caves.

"Maour! We were just about to find you two."

'Actually, we were going to get a second breakfast, then find you.' Berg licked his lips. 'I need a lot of food nowadays.'

Toothless eyed his friend. 'How in the world are you already that big?' Berg had put on even more muscle since they last saw him.

Berg rumbled happily, flexing his wings. 'We've been training. Fishlegs thought it wasn't safe that I was slower and had less endurance than the others. We haven't fixed that yet, but all that running and flying with weights on my back has helped other areas.'

Maour smiled. "That's a funny way to refer to Fishlegs."

Fishlegs shrugged. "And sometimes I bring our lunch along if we want to push ourselves." He got onto Berg's saddle. "We caught some Berserkers while you were gone."

Maour nodded. "Yeah, we were wondering how that went. Shield learned that Berserker ships aren't as easy to eliminate as he had hoped the hard way."

Fishlegs frowned. "Shield?"

Toothless clarified for both Fishlegs and Berg, as they flew out to sea. 'Einfari's brother, Nóttreiði. He's turned something of a new leaf, and wants people to call him that now.'

Berg purred. 'Good. I'll have to congratulate him. I haven't seen them since they got back.'

Toothless felt he should help Shield out. 'Don't mention the scar. It brings back bad memories.'

Berg frowned. 'What scar?'

'Believe me, you'll know when you see it. I wasn't kidding about the Berserker ship.'

'Well, here we are.' Berg circled the sea stack in the middle of nowhere that he had brought them too, looking down at the three Berserker ships anchored there. He set down on one, and Toothless followed suit. 'One generic Berserker armada vessel, minus its crew of about a dozen armed Berserkers. From what we saw, about three crossbows is the average per ship. And of course these net launchers.' He sniffed one cautiously.

Toothless growled. 'Those are dangerous. One hit could tangle and drown the dragon targeted. Or, get them captured if the Berserkers haul them in.'

Fishlegs pulled out a book and flipped through it. "We did some tests. We think these launchers are only good at close range, and they need two Berserkers to operate."

Maour eyed the rudimentary contraptions. "And they aren't very well built. They'd only be useful if the crew was ready and focused. The two things they probably won't be. But still, we can't rely on their failures of discipline."

Fishlegs smiled. "I took the liberty of designing some maneuvers that we might be able to use." He showed Maour and Toothless the drawings. "Berg helped. And the twins were actually fairly helpful too."

Maour examined the pictures. "What do you think, bud?"

'Some of these could work. I like that one.' Toothless nosed a particular drawing. 'Fast, effective, and it doesn't use up any shots.'

Fishlegs frowned. "These are all hypothetical, just so you know. We haven't had time to test them." He looked at the deck under their feet. "And we do need to see how many shots it takes to sink one of these."

Toothless and Berg grinned. 'Well, no time like the present.' Toothless laughed. 'I haven't gotten to blow something up in a while. I might be out of practice.'

A few moments later, Toothless and Berg were hovering a short distance away from one of the ships.

"Any particular method to this, Fishlegs?" Maour was smiling.

"One shot at a time hit the same spot. We can alternate. Berg, want to start us off?"

In way of response, Berg fired a full-strength plasma blast at the hull, right above the waterline. It splintered and cracked the treated wood, but didn't make any noticeable holes.

Toothless waited a few seconds, then hit the same spot with another plasma blast. Now there was a hole, though it wasn't very big. At the rate water was coming in, it would be an hour before the ship sank.

Berg hit the same spot again. Now the hole was huge, and as they watched the boat began to visibly list, tilting to the side.

Fishlegs marked that down in his notebook. "Okay, so about three shots to disable a ship. And they need to hit right above the waterline. A hole like that where no water can get in is pretty useless."

"Yes. That isn't great. Furies can shoot about eight full shots an hour, right bud?" Maour scratched Toothless's ear.

'Right. I know of no way to break that particular limit. So, not even three full ships per Fury an hour. With fourteen Furies, that makes a total of twenty-eight ships sinkable in an hour, if everything goes perfectly, and we all coordinate.'

"Well then, we'll have to test Fishlegs' methods. But Fishlegs, you won't be here to help with that. Can you make a copy of that part of your notebook before you leave?"

Fishlegs frowned, clutching the notebook to his chest. "Where we going?" He looked down at Berg. "No one told us anything about a trip."

Maour shook his head. "Sorry, I forgot about that. We need you, Heather, and the twins to go with your bonds and seek out our allies, who should be on their way to Mahelmetan in a few weeks. If you leave now, you can probably catch them right after they depart their home islands, and give them their copies of the treaty, along with marking our island on their maps."

"But we need to get to the Meatheads, Bog-Burglars, and Waxears, right? So why do you need four of us?"

Toothless snorted. 'Separating the twins is a bad idea. Especially on a journey that involves diplomacy at the end.'

"Fair point. So, who is going where?"

Maour considered that. "Heather should go to the Bog-Burglars. The twins should go to the Meatheads. Mogadon deserves to put up with them. And that sends you to Smith of the Waxears. He's the furthest out. But, because of the meeting island's central location, they should all get here at about the same time. You'll deliver the treaty and information, and..." Maour considered it. "Actually, you should stay with them. Having a rider present will ease their minds, and you can scout for them, making sure Dagur didn't decide to set up any little surprises with the few ships he has at home. I wouldn't put it past him to send one in on a suicide run at someone's fleet." It would also get the chiefs used to interacting with other riders.

"Is that a good idea? You'll be four dragons and riders short here for two months."

"Fishlegs, we were gone for two months, right? How many ships ended up around here in that time?"

"Three, but a few passed by in the distance."

"Then we should be fine. And we'll whittle down Dagur's forces. Those ships in the distance will be going down if they show up. Right now, his armada is scattered, in search mode. We can fairly safely pick off individual ships if we can find them."

"Okay. When should we leave?"

"There's no rush. In a few days, maybe. Can you tell the twins? I'll tell Heather." He wanted to talk to Heather anyway, as well as see how Shield was doing.

"On it. Well Berg, we better go find them now. It might take that long."

Berg snorted, flying off towards the island. 'We all need to leave together, safety in numbers. If we don't find the twins, we can't leave. So yes, we should start searching now.' He seemed amused.

'Is it safe to send them without us?' Toothless was a bit skeptical that the other riders could handle a journey like that.

"Bud, you know they can, at least together. Fishlegs supplies the knowledge, Heather will be the practical and experienced one, given the amount of traveling she and Einfari have done already, and the twins will listen to them. And their dragons are all competent fliers. I would trust Berg, Blast, Boom, and Einfari to make this journey on their own if they knew the way."

'True, but I think the twins might cause a diplomatic incident.'

"Which is why I put them with Mogadon. He probably deserves whatever they come up with. And having to deal with two dragons constantly pranking him alongside the twins might make him question his assumption that we're controlling you guys."

'Good point. The twins definitely aren't in control of Blast and Boom. Partners, at best.'

With that, they followed Berg and Fishlegs, heading back to the island. While Berg immediately began to search for the elusive twins, Toothless headed for the Nótt caves. 'You wanted to talk to her now, right?'

"Sure, why not?" Maour had actually been planning to try and find Heather near the end of the night, when she and Einfari were likely to actually be at the cave, instead of out flying somewhere. But they might as well try.

As it turned out, all of the Nótts were in the small clearing outside their cave entrance. Shield and Nótthljóður were playing, and Heather was a fair distance away, practicing with her ax. Einfari was watching both activities, as was Nóttleiðtogi. Nóttskarpur wasn't around at the moment.

When Toothless set down, Shield instantly paused and looked up, quickly spotting him. He purred for a moment, and then went back to what he had been doing.

Maour dismounted, waving to Nóttleiðtogi and Einfari, before moving over to Heather. "Heather, do you have a second? I need to talk to you and Einfari about something."

Heather stopped working with her ax, panting slightly. It was unfolded, and she planted one end in the ground, using it as a walking stick. "Yes, what is it?"

Maour winced. "I hate to ask this, but I need a rider to go with Fishlegs and the twins to deliver the treaties and information to our allies, and stay with them on the way here."

Einfari growled. 'But we just got back!'

"I know, I know. And the riders won't be leaving for a few days. But the group needs at least a few members with experience on this particular route, and it has to be a dragon with a rider, to deal with the chief at the end of the journey. And, well..." He trailed off.

Heather understood. "And you can't go. Not now, not when you have responsibilities here." She looked over at Einfari. "What do you say?"

'I guess we're going. We leave with the other riders?'

Toothless nodded. 'Whenever they go. Basically, a day or so after Fishlegs finds the twins and tells them. So you have some time.'

Shield had been listening. He walked over to Toothless, Nótthljóður following him. 'Can you assure me that they'll be safe?'

'No, I can't. You know that. It shouldn't be dangerous, but you never know. They'll travel with three other Furies and riders for most of the journey there, but eventually, they'll have to split up to go to their respective chief's island and find their fleet. The journey here will be long, by boat, but that part should be totally safe.'

Shield looked between Nótthljóður and Einfari. He seemed undecided.

Nóttleiðtogi made the decision for him. 'Shield, stay here and protect Nótthljóður. Einfari and Heather are more than capable of handling this, and we don't know what will happen here while they're gone. You're more likely to be needed here.'

Shield looked over at his father and bowed his head in assent. 'You are correct, as usual. I will stay. Be safe, sisters.' He nuzzled Einfari and Heather, ignoring his scar in the process.

'We will. And you. All of you.' Einfari purred at Nótthljóður. 'Especially you, Joy. Don't get into trouble.'

Heather laughed. "Guys, we aren't leaving right this second. We have some time."

* * *

But time passed quickly. In a few days, Maour and Toothless saw the riders off. They watched as the four silhouettes disappeared into the night, flying at a slightly slower pace than normal to accommodate Berg. The trip for the travelers passed slowly, as they knew they only had a longer and much slower ride back to look forward to. However, it passed without any major incidents. After a few weeks, the time came for the riders to split up, heading to the islands of their allies. From there, each rider-dragon pair (or quartet) followed the path the fleet would have taken, and eventually found them.

* * *

"Berg, I think that's them!" Fishlegs was overjoyed at the prospect of not flying all day every day for a while. So he was pretty excited.

Berg responded by speeding up. 'Good. This was getting boring, playing catch-up to a group of boats.' He considered the fleet. 'Though it is interesting to see how these ships differ from those of the Berserkers.'

The two travelers circled the fleet, receiving some scattered cheers. More than they were expecting, to be honest, even if these were allies. Vikings did not normally cheer dragons. They continued circling until they were signaled down onto one of the ships.

Fishlegs immediately dismounted, walking in a quick circle around Berg to get rid of the cramps in his legs.

Berg on the other hand gratefully folded in his wings and promptly settled down, entirely content to go to sleep here in the middle of the deck, which he promptly did. Carrying Fishlegs, no matter how strong one was, was tiring work.

A Viking approached Fishlegs. "I assume you would be from the Isle of Night?" He was smiling.

Fishlegs nodded seriously. "Yes, Fishlegs Ingerman and Eldurberg here, at your service." He was trying to sound formal, as he imagined would be proper in this situation. He pulled out the treaty. "Here you go."

Smith took the treaty and unrolled it. "Quite an interesting mark. How was this done?" He was looking at a circular cluster of tear-shaped black blobs. It seemed chaotic but organized, none of the marks escaping a three-inch circle around them.

Fishlegs grinned. He wasn't sure Smith needed to know that that was how the pack, after much debate, signed the treaty. Every Night Fury on the island had dipped a claw in a jar of ink Fishlegs had happened to have, and made one mark. Even the young Furies participated. "Oh, we have a stamp for that."

* * *

Heather and Einfari dropped onto the deck of Bertha's leading ship. Heather grinned as Camicazi and Bertha came over to greet them. "You guys really do travel stealthily. Sailing at night? That's dedication."

Bertha laughed. "We figured dragons with night vision wouldn't have a problem finding us, so we didn't think we needed to change anything. You have the treaty?"

Heather handed the parchment over. "Yes, and I am authorized to mark the Isle of Night on one map of your choice."

Bertha shrugged. "Will you be with us until we get there, or are you flying back?"

"With your permission, we will stay with you. Maour figured you could use an aerial scout, and meeting up with the other riders to journey back would have been a hassle."

Camicazi smiled. "Good. How good are you with that ax? I feel the need to redeem myself against a rider."

Heather met her stare. "Not good enough. I'd be happy to train with you, as well as sparring. There's a war coming. Might as well use this trip to prepare."

* * *

'Is that them?' Blast wasn't entirely sure.

"Well, let's see." Tuffnut pulled out his spyglasses and focused in on the distant sails. "Maour said these guys were Meatheads. They look pretty stupid to me. I'd say we found them."

"No idiot, that's what their tribe is called! And the sails have the Meathead insignia he described, so that is them."

Boom warbled inquisitively. 'Should we make a dramatic entrance?'

"Yes." Both of the twins spoke at the same time.

* * *

Mogadon's midday meal was interrupted by the sounds of twin Night Fury shrieks, apparently quite close by. He grabbed his ax and rushed to the deck of his ship, out of years of dragon-fighting reflexes. He abruptly remembered why he shouldn't attack Night Furies on sight when he saw two of the beasts sitting on the deck of his flagship, a few feet away. And two lanky riders, similar in appearance, though one had a really weird hairdo, something involving stubby braids and not much else.

Before Mogadon could speak, one of the riders bowed mockingly from the saddle. "Chief Mogadon, we presume? We would be the Thorston-Myrkur Quartet of Destruction, Devaluation, and Destiny!"

The other rider winced and slapped the first. "We're still working on the last part."

The first rider slapped her back, whispering furiously. They got into a fiercely whispered debate, completely forgetting Mogadon.

Mogadon stared in shock as the two Furies exchanged clearly amused glances, and one of the two nosed around in the saddlebag of the other, grabbing something after a few moments. The two Furies carefully walked forward, keeping in sync so their riders didn't notice the change of location. The Fury who had grabbed the treaty warbled, clearly wanting Mogadon to take it.

Mogadon stared at the clearly distracted riders quarreling two feet in front of him, and then at the dragon handing him the treaty. He took the parchment from the dragon's mouth carefully.

He knew then, as he unraveled the treaty, that Maour had just outwitted him. Because Mogadon didn't believe that the dragons were intelligent, Maour had sent two dragon-rider pairs in which the dragons were clearly more responsible and possibly more intelligent than the riders.

One of the twins looked up and saw Mogadon looking at the treaty. "Hey! Blast, we were supposed to give him that."

The two dragons looked at each other again and nodded. Before the twins could do anything, the dragons had unceremoniously dumped them out of the saddles and left them there, moving to a sunny corner and curling up there.

"Well, I guess they think their work here is done." Ruffnut scratched her head, staring after the two Furies.

'Yes, it is. We don't do maps, and that's the other part.' Boom yawned. 'Wake us when it's dinnertime.' She put her head down and closed her eyes.

Tuffnut turned to Mogadon. "Oh, and I am delighted to inform you our esteemed..." He turned to Ruffnut. "Wait, is Maour our commander? He doesn't have any power over us, right?"

"No... but we do what he says anyway."

"Why do we do that?"

Blast interrupted. 'Because he comes up with the best plans. He and Toothless are our unofficial pack leaders, at least for the younger Furies. Just go with it.'

Tuffnut turned back to Mogadon. "Whatever. We're supposed to stay with you guys until we get to the Isle of Night, as escorts and scouts. Lucky you!"

Mogadon groaned. "Great." It was going to be a long two months.

_**Reason for Removal: **_**This was all basically obsolete by the time I got here, and Heather's injury specifically forced a shuffling of assignments anyway.**

* * *

_**Night Strike **_**(Chapter 24)**

'There it is.' Toothless chuffed seriously. 'Everyone knows the plan, right?'

'Of course, we've done this twice already.' Nóttskarpur purred, barely audible over the sounds of air rushing past them as they flew. 'We know what to do, right Togi?'

Togi laughed. 'Of course. But this rope is annoying.' He shook his front paws, shaking the rope he and Nóttskarpur were carrying opposite ends of as they flew, its length dangling loosely between them.

'Well, we need to test this method. So deal with it.' Myrkurheili's tone implied he was amused by the complaints. 'You were the ones who volunteered, remember?'

"Alright everyone, we're going in. You all know your parts." Maour's voice was serious. "Let's get this done without any mistakes. Keep the streak going." He eyed the Berserker ship passing about ten miles out from the Isle of Night. He spoke softly, not intending anyone to hear. "You guys won't be joining the rest of the Dagur's armada. I hope you can swim."

The four Furies swooped silently towards the ship, Toothless and Myrkurheili flying ahead slightly, circling around so that they were ready to intervene if something went wrong.

The two Furies holding opposite ends of the rope spread out as they approached the ship, moving carefully so as to not jerk each other to the side. The rope wasn't taut, but it was close. They flew low, passing over the ship from its broad side, one over the front and one over the back. The rope between them. They flew, and in a practiced move slowed right before the rope went taut, caught on the mast of the ship. That was the point.

They flew laboriously, pulling in unison. The ship was heavy, but it was a floating object, and they had turned the mast into something of a lever. Either the mast would break, crippling the ship, or...

The ship tilted, and that was when the Berserkers on board realized something was going on. But they were at the moment far too occupied with trying to stay on their mysteriously leaning ship to even notice the two Furies powering away from them, pulling the ship over, onto its side.

It took less than twenty seconds for the ship to go from parallel to the ocean to dangerously tilted. And then it passed the point of equilibrium. It toppled over, falling totally on its side into the ocean.

Skarpur and Togi let go of the rope, as it was still wrapped around the mast, and trying to retain it was far too risky. The ship sunk extremely quickly, pulling many unfortunate Berserkers down under with it. Those who had gotten clear floundered aimlessly in the suddenly empty ocean, miles from any land.

Maour looked away. Vikings were heavy and usually terrible swimmers. But if they lasted long enough, the current around here would probably dump them on some deserted island. There were a few small ones in the path of the current. But that wasn't his concern. They were at war, and at least this way the Berserkers had a chance of surviving. And he wouldn't risk anyone trying to pick these Berserkers out of the water. That was just asking for someone to get cut or stabbed by some fanatic, sure that his death would be worth taking out a Night Fury.

'This is war, Maour. I don't like it, but they chose to follow Dagur.' Togi spoke softly, returning to the Furies with Skarpur.

"I know. It doesn't mean I have to like it either." Maour glanced back at the now-empty waters, save for a few floating barrels and Vikings clinging to said barrels. "Let's go. And Myrkurheili, be sure to warn whoever is on patrol that it's possible we might get a Berserker or two if they somehow swim this far." He was pretty sure it was a Myrkur on patrol the coming day, so Myrkurheili wouldn't have a problem delivering that message.

'Yes. The usual procedure?" Myrkurheili grinned. 'Strip them of weapons and armor, knock them out, and dump them in Mahelmetan?'

"Yup."

'Maour, what could we do with all of the armor and weapons we've taken so far?' Toothless sounded intrigued. 'Fishlegs and the other riders took everything from three whole ships, and we've only added to the pile. There's a lot of metal there. Could we use it for something?'

"I'm not sure. But you're right, it might have some use for us. Probably not as is. We don't need swords or chainmail armor. Fury scales aren't the toughest things, but chainmail would weigh dragons down too much to be useful."

Toothless growled. 'True, our scales aren't the thickest things. We're built for speed and offense. If we need to defend ourselves, we just don't get hit.'

Maour smiled. "one layer of scales is still good, compared to human skin. And remember, stuff like my armor isn't just one layer. overlapping the scales might not be possible for you guys, given they're part of you, but it makes them much stronger as a whole. Your scales don't have to be thick to protect."

Toothless thought about that. 'But we don't shed our scales nearly often enough to make extra armor out of them for ourselves. The other riders don't even have full suits yet, even though all the dragons in their families contribute.' Maour only had a full set because he wasn't of the 'Viking' body type and because all four of the Svarturs had been saving their scales for a few years, for various reasons. Von had contributed almost fifteen years worth on her own because she kept them for sentimental reasons. She had said she would rather see them protecting someone than sitting in a side cave. As a result, only Maour had full body armor. The twins wore scale helmets, and that was about it because there were two of them. Fishlegs had a helmet and arm braces when he chose to wear those. The helmets had been a top priority once Maour hit upon the scale armor idea, to preserve some element of mystery in the appearance of the rider.

"Well, maybe in the future. The really far future." Unless there was a population boom, it would take literal decades for a family to shed enough scales to make a single set of protective armor for a dragon. And Maour knew of no metal light and strong enough. Well, besides that of his scythe, but he had never seen any more of that stuff. It might be easier to just wait for several decades.

The four Furies flew back to the Isle in silence after that, all lost in their own thoughts.

_**Reason for Removal: **_**Honestly, this scene just wasn't worth the effort to port when I was expanding the conflict anyway; it served as a stopgap 'here's some violence before the final battle' sort of thing, and that was a bigger problem that needed to be solved anyway.**

* * *

_**Newlywed Bonding Exercise **_**(Chapter 25)**

The first Dagur heard of things going wrong was a subtle gurgling sound. He was by the docks, running a midnight inspection tour. What else was he going to do while he waited for the rest of his armada to show up? Astrid was, if he remembered correctly, still obsessing over maps of the area, trying to figure out where to search. He had recognized her obsession at work and left her to it.

But what was that sound? He squinted over the dark ships docked at this miserable island's many docks. The island was a crescent in shape, and the docks were on the inside edge of it. He looked over the ships, meaning they were all within view where he was, at one of the tips of the crescent. Nothing amiss, everything good, dark figu-

"Intruders! Pirates! Boat-Thieves!" Dagur screamed at the top of his lungs at the shadowy figures that jumped off of one of his- wait, was the ship sinking? They had put holes in his ship! As Dagur looked, he realized that six of his ships were missing. Thor, they had done that much damage already?!

His yells had sounded the alarm, and all across the island Berserkers were rushing out of the many taverns, going to their assigned ships, as was the procedure. He could see the confused crowd of Berserkers that no longer had ships to return to mingling about on the other tip of the crescent.

He felt his mood swing to happy and cheerful but stamped down on that. It took a ridiculous amount of effort, but Dagur needed to keep calm right now. He remained merely angry.

That was when blue fire started raining from the sky. This was something out of an apocalyptic nightmare. In other words, some of Dagur's more entertaining dreams. But not so entertaining when it was happening to his armada. Ships burst into flames as the many plasma blasts hit, strangely targeting only certain ships, those about halfway into the docks.

Dagur didn't restrain the amazed laugh he felt bubbling up. "Hiccup, you sneaky-" He was abruptly cut off by a plasma blast hitting a boat near where he was standing, deafening him. The sound of Night Fury shrieks now filled the night air, so many at once. So many.

He spotted Astrid standing helplessly nearby, waving her ax aimlessly. She seemed stunned by the volume of the noise.

Dagur made his way towards her. "Well, at least things aren't boring anymore!" He had to shout just to be heard over the shrieks and the occasional blast of plasma, sporadic but consistent now, hitting ships at random.

"How in Thor's name are there so many?!" Astrid was screaming in rage, looking around at the destruction.

"I know, it's amazing! So much firepower!" Dagur realized he had lost control, and quickly reasserted it. "But there has to be more to it than destroy randomly. There were people sinking ships in secret." He thought back. "Bog-Burglars, I guess."

"Where are they now? I want to fight something I can reach!" Astrid was still raging mad, helpless to stop the invisible assailants.

Dagur quickly took stock of the scene. His soldiers were helpless, the relative few with crossbows having nothing to aim at. They were reduced to trying to fight the fires that were being started. But about ten of his ships weren't blocked in by the few strategically located ships that had been the subject of the initial bombardment and were chasing after slimmer ships that had been hidden in the night. The Bog-Burglars, retreating now that their cover was blown. "Out of our reach now, but we have ships on their tail. So if you're lucky, we'll have some prisoners."

Astrid scowled. "We need to do something, not just stand around and take this."

"Agreed. Any ideas?" Dagur knew there was nothing he personally was needed for. Fighting fires was all his men could do, and they didn't need him to tell them how to do it. So he would see what his betrothed came up with.

"Yes." Astrid ran full speed to the group of Berserkers that had no ships and was currently emptying barrels of mead so that they could use them to fight the fires. Dagur followed, intrigued.

Astrid grabbed a crossbow from one of the Berserkers and threw it at Dagur. Then she took another along with two full quivers and turned to him.

Dagur caught the loaded crossbow and took a quiver, slinging it over his back. "Now what? We could shoot randomly, but I think you have more of a plan than that."

Astrid didn't answer, instead running to one of the larger taverns. She started climbing the side of the building, still carrying crossbow and ax.

"Impressive."

"Shut up and come on!" Astrid disappeared onto the roof.

Dagur shrugged. "Why not?" He quickly climbed to the roof, though he thought ahead and threw his ax up ahead of him. Once he had retrieved his ax from its spot embedded in the roof, he located Astrid. She was standing precariously at the highest point, looking to the sky above the docks.

He looked out the way she was staring. Fury plasma blasts were still raining down, though less frequently. With a maniacal chill, Dagur realized the Furies were waiting to target ships that had been put out already. Intelligent. But it gave him and Astrid a pattern to follow. "Astrid, they're relighting ships!" With that, he scrambled up to the highest point with her, balancing unsteadily. "Long way down..." He looked at the ground below. "I like it! No risk, no reward!"

Astrid turned to look at him, smiling as widely as he was. "Up here we don't have our night vision ruined by fire, and we know where to aim for. So get ready." She pointed at a ship that was just being returned to a non-fiery state. "That one."

Dagur nodded. "On it." He liked this plan.

A moment passed. Then another. Neither faltered, neither wavered in their vigil. Dagur knew Astrid would wait until the world ended if she thought it would give her a shot at a Night Fury. He would be here with her.

Then they heard a new screech, only distinguishable from the steady shrieking because it had just started. They both tensed. And, when they saw the beginnings of a plasma blast, they fired, Dagur slightly after Astrid.

There was a shriek of pain, but no Fury fell from its dive, and no Fury was seen anywhere, wounded or falling, but a second later, everything stopped. The blasts, the shrieks, the fire. Everything.

Astrid smirked. "We hit it, at lea-"

She was cut off by the loudest shriek either of them had ever heard. It had to be all of the Furies screaming in unison.

Dagur looked around. "Maybe we should move?" Without waiting for an answer, he slid down the roof and jumped off. He rolled as he hit the ground, absorbing the shock and keeping his momentum. He noticed Astrid beside him. She didn't stop to check on him but continued running. Not that he expected her to. They both had guessed what was coming, and there was no time.

He had only taken a few steps when half a dozen massive plasma blasts slammed into the roof of the tavern, where he and Astrid had been seconds ago. It was completely obliterated. "Yikes. That would have been quite a way to go."

Astrid looked around, scanning the sky. Nothing more could be heard, save the crackling of the many fires. "I think they're retreating. Such cowards. A single wound and they flee!"

Dagur wasn't so sure. "It's a tactical move. They've lost almost nothing."

"But so have we. These fires are mostly unimportant. Even the ships they set ablaze at the start can be easily repaired." Astrid grimaced. "How many did you say they sunk?"

"About six. Those aren't worth the effort of recovering to fix. This bay is deep." He didn't like that at all.

A few hours later, they learned that they had lost far more than six ships. None of the ten that had given chase ever came back. There weren't even floating wrecks of those. However, it wasn't all bad news. One Bog-Burglar ship was awkwardly piloted into the docks a few hours later.

Dagur and Astrid met the ship there. Dagur spoke. "Well, what happened?" His voice was cold.

The three Berserkers on board slumped, heads down. "It was an ambush. Twenty more ships hit us from the sides, and the Burglars turned and joined in. We think they lost one or two boats all told, but we lost all of ours. We managed to escape by taking this one and sailing it out. None of them noticed it was so crazy for a while."

Dagur scowled. "Any prisoners?"

The Berserker nodded, gesturing to the cabin of the ship. "We got a few because we just knocked them out and got out of there. We figured you would want them alive."

Astrid smiled grimly. "Yes, we do." She turned to Dagur. "What are the odds they've been to the Isle?"

Dagur smirked. "I'm sure we can find out. But I'd say they're pretty good. This raid was planned, and it had Hiccup's fingerprints all over it."

"Which means they had to plan it somewhere. Where better than an already secret place?" Astrid eyed the cabin. "Hiccup thinks he's gotten the best of us."

"So we find out where he lives from these fools... and burn it to the ground. Simple plan." Dagur laughed. "Good work men! I'll even let you live after fleeing battle!" He slapped the bewildered and frightened Berserkers on the back and ushered them off of the boat. Then he pushed them into the water. "Start swimming." He turned to a few nearby guards. "If these men step foot on this island again, kill them." He turned back to the boat. "Well, let's see what they know."

_**Reason for Removal:**_** This whole battle, and the leadup, and the circumstances all changed, so it wasn't really in question. This scene does feature something we never got to see in the actual story, though; Dagur and Astrid working together in person, in a fight. I think it works well that they fought and failed alone in the final version of the story, because to Astrid it was never really a partnership so much as a convenience and means to an end, but something was lost all the same.**

**Also, in the first draft, Astrid was never captured and Heather didn't accidentally spill the beans for her. The much less strictly kept secret (in the first draft, all the allies had **_**been **_**to the Isle, which was just stupid) was obtained here.**


End file.
